


A hoʻi i ka lanakila (And Back to Reality)

by MythicRhyvon



Series: Ka Momi O Home (The Journey Home) [5]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010), NCIS
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Breaking Up & Making Up, Case Fic, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Drama, Fluff and Angst, M/M, New Team, Plague, Rare Pairings, Romance, Tony DiNozzo Leaves NCIS Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 09:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11354796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MythicRhyvon/pseuds/MythicRhyvon
Summary: Vacation is over, and it’s time to get back to reality. Despite the success he’s having in his new job, his relationship with Steve has hit stormy waters. Secrets come to light, but the boys will have to set aside their own issues in order to solve their first joint case. Will their fragile relationship survive its first real test, or were they doomed to repeat history from the beginning? *WIP*





	1. Ke Kime (The Team)

A hoʻi i ka lanakila (And Back to Reality)

 

Tony drug himself out of bed just after four am- a scant three hours after he went to sleep. He was so tempted to skip his morning run and get an extra hour of sleep, but he knew when he was this tired the run would help wake him up more than skipping it would. Steve was still asleep when Tony woke, but stirred when he sat up on the edge of the bed. ‘Lucky bastard.’ Tony thought fondly at the knowledge that the other man didn’t have to leave for several hours still.

So he drug himself up, pulled on the clothes he’d had the foresight to set next to the bed the night before and trudged from the room. He grabbed a bottle of water to take a drink of, pulled on his shoes and set off. It was still mostly dark outside, but the air had begun to lighten and the moons reflection off the ocean gave him enough to see by. He felt a little more short of breath than normal, but attributed it to his overly tired state and ignored it best he could.

He arrived back at the house just before six to find Steve awake in the kitchen, cooking something on the stove. Tony changed course to greet him good morning and saw that he was just starting omelets. “It’ll be about ten or so more minutes if you want to jump in the shower.” Steve commented.

Tony pressed a kiss to his shoulder in thanks and headed upstairs. He took a quick shower, dried off, ran some product through his hair and then got partially dressed. He pulled on his boxer briefs and pants, and then pulled his button up on and left it open for the moment. His tie, jacket, socks and shoes he carried with him back downstairs. He’d always used his clothes like a suit of armor, and his favorite suit always made him feel more confident in himself.

The food was finished when he arrived back downstairs and they headed out to eat on the lanai just as the sunrise was really starting. They ate together in silence, both content to enjoy the stillness of the morning, with naught but the sounds of nature surrounding them, and each other for company.  

When six-thirty came around, Tony was completely dressed and ready to go. “Thank you for breakfast.” Tony murmured from where he was pressed against Steve in a farewell embrace.

“You’re welcome.” Steve replied, voice soft and husky. “I’d wish you good luck, but you don’t need it.” He continued. “Let me know how it goes, yeah?”

“‘Course. Alright, I should go.” _I love you_ tried to bubble up to the surface, but he didn’t let it escape. They’d only been together just over five weeks and, and, despite the ease with which they’d fallen back into their relationship, it still felt too fast to say it out loud. “I’ll call you tonight.” He finished with instead and Steve didn’t seem to notice his hesitation.

“Talk to you then.” Steve said, pressing one more kiss to the top of Tony’s head before pulling away. Tony grabbed his bag, made sure he had his cell, key’s and sunglasses, and then set off for his first day as team lead in Hawaii.

The Pearl Harbor Naval Base was enormous. It was like it’s only little city, complete with a golf course, baseball fields, a school, and so much more. Luckily he’d been given directions on how to find the NCIS office, or he would have been completely lost trying to find it himself.

Deputy Director Samuel Worth met him upon his arrival. He was a friendly looking man, who was just slightly overweight with a grey receding hairline and a half-smile that looked at home on his face. “Agent DiNozzo, I’ve heard good things. I’m looking forward to working with you.” The man greeted him with a firm handshake.

“The feeling is mutual, sir. When I accepted the job, Secretary Jarvis said you served as his Personal Security Advisor for a couple of years. I imagine that’s a pretty tall order.” Tony remarked.

“And thus, my return to NCIS.” The older man joked. Tony smiled, feeling more at ease already. 

They began walking until they came to a large, open room. It was two stories, but the second story was open in the middle, with a walkway around the exterior and a scattering of doors. The main floor was set up with three desks, covered in a random assortment of papers, files, writing utensils and old coffee mugs- some more organized than others. Worth led him to an empty office at the front of the room. It was a good sized office, with a window facing out over the base, a large mahogany desk, and a set of file cabinets that were currently empty. A gold colored name plate was already in place on his desk, proclaiming ‘SAC A. DiNozzo.’ The SAC, of course, stood for Special Agent in Charge. Three files waited for him on the center of the desk, along with a black case.

Worth walked over and picked up the case. From it came Tony’s new badge, security key card and service weapon. “The files are on the members of your team. You’ll have at least today to get familiar with them before we issue you a case. I can’t guarantee anything beyond that.”

“Oh, no, I completely understand. I appreciate having today.” Tony said and then paused. “I actually have kind of an odd request to make.”

“Oh?”

“This office is great, it’ll be really nice for the nights I stay late doing paperwork, but I wonder if I might actually have a desk out in the bullpen for when we’re working active cases? I feel like I’d be pretty disconnected from my team in here.”

“That’s not a problem, I’ll have the boys move one in right away. Anything else you need of the bat?”

“Not that I can think of.”

“Well then I’ll leave you to get settled in. Your team will be here at eight, let me know if you need anything.”

“Thank you, sir.”

~*~*~*~

The first team member arrived at ten to eight. He was an average sized man with a nice tan, dirty blonde hair and a lithe, but muscular, build. He paused slightly when he saw the rearranged room and added desk, but still carried himself confidently and moved to the desk farthest on the left that was also the most organized. He seated himself and immediately moved to boot up his computer. Tony remained in his office, door closed and blinds shuddered save for the line he was peering discreetly through. He wanted to observe their interactions with each other before making his presence known.

The second to arrive was a woman. She was shorter than the first man, with brown hair pulled back into a French braid and a large cup of coffee clenched in her hand. She greeted the first man friendly enough, casually asking if he knew the reason for the change while she moved to take a seat at the desk to his left, which was also the most cluttered. Finally, the last member arrived right at eight o’clock. He was huge compared to the other two, and Tony knew he would tower over him as well. He looked Samoan, with bronze skin, bulging muscles and dark tribal tattoos. His hair was cut short and looked dark brown or black. His pause was more pronounced, but he simply nodded at the first two and took his seat at the remaining desk, which was more organized chaos than anything else.

None of them were talking, all focused on their computers and putting their things away. Tony decided he may as well introduce himself, since he wasn’t picking up on much from his observing. He exited the office and three pairs of eyes immediately locked on him. “Good morning.” He started with, leaning back against the wall of his office with his arms crossed casually across his chest. “My name is Anthony DiNozzo, and I’m your new team lead.”

The three stared at him silently, waiting. “I know you guys have been working together for a while now, but that you haven’t had a lead in a few weeks. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all better, and working with you from here on out, and I’m sure you’re looking forward to getting back out in the field.” The blonde smiled slightly, but the other two remained stoic.

“I’m sorry to tell you that won’t be today. We’re booked for the shooting range, the sparing gym and one of the obstacle courses, and we’re also going to the track. We may do a couple other things, depending on how the day goes. But first, introductions.  Let’s start with you.” He said nodding to the blonde who had been first to arrive.

“Uh.” The man said, darting a quick look over to the larger Samoan. “Shouldn’t you know who we are already?”

“Why would you assume that?” Tony questioned, head tilting as he watched them trade another look.

“Because you’re our supervisor? Didn’t they give you our files, or something?”

“They did indeed.” Tony agreed easily.

“Shouldn’t you have read them then?” The blonde continued, starting to sound a little annoyed, though his tone remained controlled.

“Yep. And I will- tonight.” He shifted his right hand up, elbow propped over his still crossed left arm, and let his head rest slightly forward where his curled fist rested against his mouth. “Still like to know who you are though, unless you’d like me to call you ‘one,’ ‘two,’ and ‘three’ for today? Or maybe ‘Athos,’ ‘Aramis’ and ‘Porthos?’ How about- ‘Moe,’ “Curly,’ and ‘Larry?’ No, I guess those don’t really work. ‘Harry,’ ‘Ron,’ and ‘Hermione?’ Feel free to stop me when you hear one you like.”

The blonde’s expression was getting more and more incredulous the longer he spoke and Tony had to stamp down on the amusement he felt bubbling up. He and the Samoan’s eyes met again, and it was the third time in about two minutes. That might be interesting.  “My name is Jesse Graham.” He finally said, cutting off Tony’s continuing spiel.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Jesse Graham. And what is your role on this team?”

“Excuse me?” Graham asked, brows furrowing.

“What’s your role here? What do you bring to the team? What got you your spot here?”

“Well, I served as an Operations Specialist for twelve years.”

“Oh?” Tony asked, intrigued. “Did you ever serve aboard the USS Seahawk?”

“I did, as a matter of fact, but only briefly.”

“What year?”

“2005.”

“I did a stint as agent afloat back in ’08. Was Richard captain when you were there too?”

“He was, actually.”

“He’s a good man, a good captain.” Tony remarked. “And how long have you been with NCIS?”

“Three years, give or take.”

Tony nodded before turning his attention to the woman. “And you are?”

“Natalie Johnson, sir.” The woman responded after only the slightest pause.

“Don’t call me sir, I’m not in the Navy. It’s DiNozzo or Boss.”

“Yes, sir. Uh, Boss?”

Tony chose not to remark a second time and asked her the same question he’d asked Graham. “And what is your role on this team?”

“I’m a Naval Aviator Pilot. I’m also fluent in Arabic, Russian and Persian, and I’m passable in Hebrew, Hindi and Romanian.” She sounded more confident than she had in addressing him.

“And how long have you been with NCIS?

“Just over a year.”

Tony nodded and turned to the last man. “And you?” He asked simply.

“Makaio Palowunu. I served as a Special Warfare Combatant, and I’ve been with NCIS for eight years. Senior Field Agent for the last four.” His voice was as gruff and deep as Tony had imagined it would be.

“Fantastic, it sounds like you have a great variety of skills between the three of you. Today will be to gage fitness levels, how the team preforms together and individually, and any potential strengths or weaknesses. Any questions?”

The three continued to silently watch him, and no one spoke up. “Great. So, I have no idea where the shooting range is. I’ll follow you.” He said, pushing of the wall and moving to the door. The three stood and followed, Palowunu took the leading, followed by the other two and then Tony.

The small arms firing range, it turned out, was only a couple of hallways away. He’d had Worth book it for two hours when they’d been discussing his arrival over the phone. When he arrived, he was happy to see four rows of guns laid out neatly on a table at the back of the huge room. All four automatically moved to grab the ear protection hanging neatly beside the door. “We’ll start with handguns.” He said, moving to one end and gesturing at Johnson to pick up the first weapon, a Beretta 9mm. She moved to comply. “Now, I’d like to see you strip it, reassemble, load, and empty the clip, if you’d be so kind.” He requested, pulling his own earmuffs up to cover his ears and gesturing to the others to do the same.

She moved to stand before the smaller, empty table, and began to do as directed. Her movements were slow, but steady and she worked through it. It made sense that she’d be familiar with this particular gun, as it was the one typically carried by Aviator Pilots. When she moved to fire, her stance was confident and her aim passable. She didn’t hit center, but she wasn’t too far off.

When the clip was empty, she turned back around to face him. “Nice work.” Tony said simply, voice pitched louder to be heard. “Graham? The same, please.”

He did about the same, if a little faster. Two of his shots hit center, and the others were more tightly grouped than Johnson’s had been, which seemed to please him as well. “Thank you. And you, Palowunu?”

The Samoan’s brow raised the slightest bit, and Tony thought he might have been surprised that the haole could pronounce his name. Though Tony was nowhere near able to actually speak Hawaiian, he had picked up on several phrases and terms over the years, and had become somewhat used to the phonemics of the unique language.

Though he did not appear to rush, he went much faster than the first two, completing the progression in less time than it had even taken the other two to strip their own weapons. Only one of his shots was slightly off center- and then only just. The other’s formed a small, neat little circle in the middle of the bullseye. When he was finished, he set down his weapon as silently as he’d picked it up and crossed his burley arms across his chest.  Tony nodded to him and then moved to pick up the fourth.

They seemed surprised when he began moving through the same motions, but did not speak up to ask the questions clearly on their minds. He ignored it at first, moving through the motions that were as familiar to him as pulling on gloves. One thing that came from having a Gunnery Sergeant as a boss was his total comfort in handling all types of weapons- Gibbs had absolutely insisted on it, and he wasn’t afraid to go to extreme methods to get the results he wanted. His mind flashed briefly to that old NCIS baseball cap punctured with a bullet hole and Kate’s broken PDA.  

His reassembly wasn’t quite as quick as Palowunu’s had been, but his grouping was perfect. When he finished and turned to meet the eyes of his team, pushing his own earmuffs down to rest on the back of his neck. He decided to speak up rather than waiting for them to ask what they were all obviously wondering. “Today is not just about me assessing you. We are going to be working as a team, and it’s just as important that you know my strengths and weaknesses as it is for you to know each other’s and for me to know yours. In addition, I will never ask you to do something that I am not willing to do myself. Johnson, next weapon please.” He directed, pulling his earmuffs back up and moving to cross his arms and observe.

The remaining weapons went in about the same manner. Johnson was clearly the weakest out of all of them, being much less familiar with the other weapons, and fumbling more than once during the process. Graham didn’t fumble, but he did move slowly- more so on some weapons than others. Palowunu remained the fastest uniformly over all the weapons but stayed nearly even with Tony for accuracy.  

Once they were finished in the shooting range they moved onto the sparing room/gym room. It was much like the one back in DC, with lockers crammed against one wall, a boxing ring to one side, floor mats along another, and then a variety of weights and exercise tools spread around. Unlike the shooting range, this room was open to the base, and there were several people spread randomly around the room, doing their own thing.

“Alright, we’re going to do some close quarter sparing. Same order, Johnson, you and me.” Tony said, moving to take a stance and tugging at his standard issue NCIS workout gear to get comfortable. She approached him cautiously and took a stance similar to his. He attacked her slowly, giving her plenty of time to react. He moved through a series of common moves, carefully watching her reactions and responses. “That’s enough.” He ordered after a few minutes, blocking her strike and stepping back out of range.

“Graham?” The man in question moved in easily and eyed his new boss closely. After the slow controlled moves from the first fight, Tony was a little surprised when Graham attacked him suddenly and furiously. Tony blocked his first swing and the swipe of his leg before he was back in a position to counter. The fight lasted much longer, and Tony eventually found himself overpowered and pinned. “Alright.” Tony said, and Graham immediately let go of him and hopped up. He held a hand out and took accepted it with a broad smile. “That was fantastic!” He exclaimed. “You’ll have to show me that last move again.”

Graham nodded in acceptance and stepped back off the matt. “Palowunu?” The huge man stepped forward and took his stance. “How tall are you, anyway?” Tony questioned lightly, feeling a little intimidated despite himself.

“6’7” The Samoan grunted and began attacking. Tony countered him easily, but quickly became frustrated. His new SFA used his sheer size and brute strength as his strategy. It wasn’t graceful or pretty, but it was damn effective. He had five inches on Tony, and almost a foot more arm span. At first, it didn’t seem to matter how Tony tried to attack, because the man could literally just reach out and push him away or block his efforts. Eventually though, Tony was able to duck under an overhead swing and pop forward to wrap his left hand around the back of the taller mans neck, and his right hand grabbing the top of his left bicep. From there, he was able to duck quickly under Palowunu’s left arm, while his own left arm remained holding the back of his neck. As a result, the taller man was forced to bow over, and Tony was able to step around him and get close to his back. He shifted his grip and then used his right knee and a jerk of his left hand to trip him and force him to the ground. He used his own weight to force the larger man to fall how he wanted him to, and was able to pin him on his stomach.

He let go and then plopped himself over onto his back. “Okay. Good job, everybody.” He said from his position on the floor. “That was good.” He repeated again. “You’re like a robot, you know that?” He shot at Palowunu when he finally pushed himself back to his feet. The Samoan smirked at him and casually straightened his shorts.

“Okay.” Tony said, stretching and popping up onto his toes. “I’ll leave the next one up to you. Track first or obstacle course?” The three traded looks. Running the course first would mean they had more energy, but it also meant they’d get muddy, and running while covered in drying dirt was not high up on anyone’s list.

“Track first.” Graham finally stated, speaking up for all of them. The other two nodded silently in agreement.

“Track it is.” Tony agreed. “Uh, where is that, again?” 

~*~*~*~

The rest of the day passed in about the same way, and by the time they were done, everyone was sore and tired. They all sent out general noises of goodbye and departed, though Tony only went as far as his office. He propped himself back in his chair, bringing his right leg up to prop on his desk and hold himself in position. He started reading, and was only a couple of pages in when he was interrupted by a quiet knock on his open doorframe. He looked up, surprised, to see the very man whose file he held.

“Hey.” He said, dropping his leg down and sitting up. “Sorry, though you’d all left. What’s up?”

His new SFA shrugged his massive shoulders and moved to sit in the chair across from his desk. “So you are reading them.” He commented, dark brown eyes focused on the small pile.

“Course I am.” Tony studied him. “Really though, what’s up?” I doubt you came here to watch me read.”

“You’re a curious man.” Palowunu said simply, settling more comfortably into his seat.

“Oh? How so?”

“Well, I’ve never had a commanding officer who didn’t know who I was before they assumed my command.”

“It bothers you that I didn’t read your file before meeting you.”

“It shows a lack of regard for those in your command.”

“I disagree.”

“So explain it to me then.” He demanded, voice deep.

Tony tilted his head and looked at him for a long minute before he responded. “Alright. Well, I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character. The problem is, files and be misleading, they can be taken out of context or missing important information. Reading your files first would have given me an impression of who you guys are before I met you. Instead, I choose to meet you and make my own impression before I read about you.”

“Trust me, I plan to learn everything I can about the three of you. I fully understand that your lives are in my hands, and I will never purposefully do anything that would that would increase the chance of one of you getting injured or not coming home. And, if you ever disagree with one of my orders, I fully expect you to bring it to my attention. You’ve obviously been with these guys a lot longer than I have, and I will respect your opinions as much as I hope you will come to respect mine with time.”

The man studied him for another long second before smiling the slightest bit. “Nolaila, loihi no laila, pono.” [So far, so good.] The man said, jerking his chin at him before pushing himself up out of the chair. “Aloha ahiahi.” [Good night.]

The first phrase he didn’t recognize, but the second he did. “Good night.” He replied automatically, watching the man disappear. Once he was alone again, he turned his eyes back to the file and settled back in to read.

His phone buzzed on his desk sometime later. He ignored it for a minute, finishing the page he was on before he grabbed it. It was a picture from Steve- two beers sitting on the chairs of his lanai. Tony smiled when he saw it and texted out a reply. ‘That looks amazing. Unfortunately, I’m going to be here for a while still. Drink mine for me, and I’ll see you tomorrow- promise. xo’  

The reply came almost immediately. ‘:( okay. Don’t work too hard. -S’ He smiled again and tossed the phone back on the desk. He started reading again when the tickle in his chest he’d been ignoring all day came back with a vengeance. He rubbed at his sternum and took a sip of the cold coffee sitting on his desk. It went away after a minute, and he went back to reading without thought.

~*~*~*~

When he arrived home later that night, he poured himself a glass of scotch and moved out onto the back deck. He leaned against the rail and sipped at the liquid, watching the waves hit the shore in the distance. The tickle came back even worse than before, and he found himself coughing before he realized it was coming. It was harsh and loud, a buildup of all the coughs he’d forced down throughout the day.

His throat hurt a little when it was over, and he clenched his eyes shut and forced his breaths to come slow and steady. He’d never, never, forget the feel of drowning, of not being able to catch his breath, of knowing, absolutely, that his own lungs were going to suffocate him. Sometimes, we he coughed particularly hard, the feeling crept back up to his peripheral. Once he had himself back under control, he downed the rest of the liquid in one long drink, and then turned to go back inside.  

He headed to the master bath to take a long hot shower and then curled up on the couch in front of the tv. He turned on a movie half-heartedly, feeling exhausted, and then grabbing his phone once he was comfortable. He dialed absently and then pulled the phone up to rest against his ear.

“Hey.” Steve’s voice greeted him lowly. Tony could hear the sound of the waves, and though Steve might still be sitting outside. “How was your first day.”

“Good, I think. Ran ‘em through their paces, seemed to go okay.”

“Sounds like you ran yourself too.”

“Yeah, I’m exhausted.” Tony said, laughing quietly.

“So how are they?”

“They’re good- great even. First team I’ve seen made completely of formally enlisted personal. There’s some room for improvement, but they’re pretty solid already. It’ll be good to see them work an actual case, see how they mesh.”

“That’s awesome. Makes me feel better knowing you’ve got good people watching your six.”

“Yeah, for sure. But how was your day?” Tony questioned, voice growing softer still.

“Quiet, for the most part. We ended up driving out to Wahiawa to check out some suspicious holes that appeared in the Botanical Gardens. Turned out to be black market sale of rare and endangered flora. You know they actually use those plants for makeup and skin creams? Tony? Babe?” The sound of Steve chuckling came over the speaker, but Tony did not hear it. In fact, it wasn’t until Steve disconnected the call and called him back that the sound of his ringing phone woke him up.

He startled awake and sat up, phone falling onto his lap from its resting place. He picked it up and answered it, rubbing a hand down his face. “Hey, sorry. Didn’t mean to fall asleep.” He said, voice scratchy, after hitting accept.  

“Nah, it’s fine. Why don’t you go to bed? Sounds like you need a good night’s sleep.”

“Yeah, think I’ll do that. Goodnight, sweet dreams.” Tony murmured, pushing himself up and absently turning the tv off.

“Moeʻuhane hemolele.” Steve returned. “A i ka la apopo.”

 

_~*~ To Be Continued… ~*~_


	2. Olelo Ana (Joint Operation)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Grace spend some quality time together before a frustrating case comes to light.

The remainder of the week passed by nicely. They ended up receiving a case involving a series of thefts from nearby base housing. It was a great first case for the team to work together, and Tony couldn’t have hand picked a better one. It allowed them to interview multiple witnesses and victims, visit five different crime scenes and then track the perpetrator down to a chop shop on the other side of the island.

The man had been doing it for a while, but he’d gotten lazy and started to hit houses close to each other, instead of his previous routine of hitting one house per neighborhood. It allowed them to connect the break-ins as being done by one person, rather than random occurrences. They had the guy in jail by Wednesday afternoon and had the rest of the day to fill out and submit their paperwork.

Tony was, once again, pleasantly surprised at how well done their reports were, and at how quickly they submitted them. He figured it was a left-over habit from the service, and he definitely wasn’t going to complain about it. They’d been perfect during the case as well, following his orders without question, while at the same time contributing idea’s to help solve the case.  

Thursday they caught another little case, but had it tied up by seven that night. Friday morning was spent doing Thursdays paperwork, and then Friday afternoon Graham and Palowunu heading to the sparing room, while Johnson and Tony headed back to the shooting range. They didn’t have it blocked, so there were others using the facilities, but there was still plenty of room for them to fit in some additional practice. Tony requested the weapons she’d had the hardest time with, and then slowly started to walk her through the breakdown and mechanisms of each of them.

They remained in the shooting range until four, and then headed back. The other two were already back in the office, and Tony dismissed them all an hour early. As soon as they were gone, he found himself bowed over with the force of his coughing. He’d been ignoring it, hoping it would clear up on its own, but he was quickly realizing he would have to make an appointment with the new doctor.  

He’d been limiting his time around Steve since it started, not wanting the other man to know that he was ill. He’d gotten lucky, staying at work late Monday, and then having the case to focus on Tuesday. He used the case paperwork as an excuse to stay away until later than night, and then brushed off the idea of sleeping over, knowing it was likely he’d wake up coughing sometime during the night. Steve had looked a little put off, but accepted it willingly enough. Thursday was the second case, which brought him back to now.

When he’d texted Steve at lunch time, Five-O did not have an active case going, and he asked if Tony wanted to come over for a cookout with the ohana that night. It being the weekend, he couldn’t think of a reason to refuse, and had agreed to head over when he got off.

That said, he didn’t want to let his partner know he’d finished early, as it would be more time he’d have to control the itchy, prickly feeling that left him feeling constantly on the verge of losing his control. Realizing how off the train of his thoughts was running, he sighed in aggravation and pulled out the business card Brad had given him all those weeks ago.

“Straub Pulmonology, this is Amber speaking, how may I help you today?” A pleasant voice greeted him.

“Hi Amber, my name is Anthony DiNozzo, and my physician referred me to Dr. Pauahi. I’m new to the island, and was wanting to make an appointment?” He tapped his pen against the desk as he spoke.

“Can you verify your date of birth for me, please?” She asked.

“July eight, nineteen seventy-one.” He rattled off.

“Thank you. Oh, yes. It looks like we have been trying to contact you, as a matter of fact.”

“Ah, yeah, sorry about that. Been busy with the move.” He said, making a face. “But I’m having some issues now, and am hoping to get in to see him.”

“Sure, I can definitely help you with that. It looks like he has had a cancellation on Tuesday at 2:30. Would that work for you?”

“Yes, I will make that work.”

“Great! Dr. Pitt has already sent over your file. You’ll just need to bring your photo ID and insurance card for us to get you registered.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Perfect. Is there anything else I can help you with today?” She asked brightly.

“No, that’s it. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome. Have a great weekend!”

“You too.” He replied politely before hanging up.

~*~*~*~

He put off going to Steve’s until six, and so he was the last to arrive. Someone had started music playing on the lanai, and the sounds of talk and laughter could be heard drifting from around the house when he pulled up.

Tony let himself into the house, but moved towards the kitchen rather than straight out to join the others. He opened a cupboard and pulled down the bottle of scotch that had migrated there at some point or other, and poured himself a small glass of the amber liquid. He drank it, rinsed the glass, and put everything back away. Then he grabbed a cold beer from the fridge, took a swig to remove the taste of the liquor, and headed out back.

“Hey!” Steve said when he saw him, hopping to his feet and moving across the sand to greet him. “I feel like I haven’t seen you all week!” He said as he drew him into an embrace, pressing a kiss against the corner of his mouth at the same time.

“Sorry.” Tony replied with a smile. “Guess the vacation really is over.” He joked as they started to move back towards the others, Steve’s arm wrapped around his waist. The mans’ team greeted him with friendly bolster, and Tony felt himself start to relax for real at the inviting atmosphere.

“So?” Kono piped up once Tony was seated. “How’s your new team?” She questioned, comfortably curled up in her seat with a beer in one hand.

“Uh, they’re good. Really good, actually. We had two little cases this week, and they work together really well.” He praised.

“Not as good as us though, right?” She teased with a smirk.

“Sorry Kono,” Tony laughed, “Not touching that one. How would it look if I started comparing my new team with other teams after just a week?”

“Hey, no one said they have to know.” She argued playfully.

“Right.” Tony replied sarcastically. “All the same, I don’t want to give you any ammo for when you inevitably meet them. I have a feeling that’d come back to bite me.” 

Kono laughed loudly. “Fair enough.” She said. She took a drink of her beer and Tony copied her, though it was more to wash down the growing tickle than out of thirst.

It was only a few minutes later that Steve’s phone rang. The rest of his team all let out quiet noises of protest when they heard him address the caller as ‘governor.’

“We have a case.” He said when he hung up, walking back over from where he’d moved to take the call. “Missing person. We have to go.” He ducked down over Tony and pressed a quick kiss to mouth. “Sorry.” He said quietly when he pulled away. Tony shrugged in response, shooting him a half smile. He was a little disappointment that the man had to leave when he really hadn’t seen him much, but if he were honest, it was more of a relief than anything.  

“Rachel and Step-Stan went to Maui for the weekend. They left a few hours ago.” Danny spoke up as the others started heading for the house. His eyes then locked on Tony’s still seated frame.

“Ohh no.” Tony caught on and spoke up before Danny could continue. “I can see where this is going, and it’s not a good idea. Kids don’t like me.” He defended, hands raised like he could physically ward off the idea. “Trust me, bad idea.”

“It’s Gracie, she likes everybody.” He argued easily. “Monkey, can you come here for a second?” He asked, raising his voice to he heard where she played closer to the water. “Danno has to go to work Monkey, do you think your Uncle Tony could watch you for tonight until your Mom is back on the island?”

‘Uncle Tony?’ the man in question mouthed silently. Her little shoulders shrugged and she looked unbothered. “Will you help me build a sandcastle?” She asked, turning to look at him.

“Uhhh.” Tony stumbled. “Sure?”

“Okay!” She said brightly. “Bye Danno!” She turned to give her father a hug.

“Bye Monkey. Be good for Uncle Tony and remember- Danno loves you.”

“I love you too, Danno.” She replied sweetly. “Catch the bad guys! Bye Uncle Steve!”

A second later, Tony found himself alone with the little girl and felt a flash of alarm. He’d never been around children. Even the friends and acquaintances who had children never had them around Tony, and he had no idea how to interact with her. Even his attempts of interacting with children during cases historically ended badly. “Can you help me with my sand castle now?” She asked, drawing him from his panicked thoughts.

“Yes.” He said, pushing himself up. “Sure. I can do sandcastles.”

She led him over to where she’d been playing, but aside from some disturbed sand it didn’t look like she had done anything. “I’m not very good at making them.” She said, voice kind of sad. “They always dissolve.”

“Humm.” He said, putting his hands on his hips and looking around. “You know, if you build your castle here, it’ll get knocked down when the tide comes in in the morning anyway.”

“So where should we build it?” She asked, peering up at him with intelligent eyes.

He moved back up the beach and she followed him, trowel held in hand. “This would be a good spot.” Tony announced when they came up to firmer sand.

“But now we’re really far from the water.” Grace pointed out.

“That’s okay, I have an idea. Hold on, I’ll be right back.” He turned and headed back inside, but paused on the threshold. “Uhh, don’t go in the water.” He directed at her, wondering if he should leave her by the beach alone, or if she was old enough that it was okay.

“I know the rules, Uncle Tony.” She said, sounding put upon in a way that only a child could.

“Rules, right, good.” He mumbled to himself, heading to the garage to grab the empty five gallon bucket and two of the metal paint spreaders he knew were in there, then to the kitchen to grab to two small plastic pitchers and a handful of toothpicks.

When he arrived back outside, he saw that Grace had taken the time to smooth a circle of sand to start building on. “Alright,” He said, setting down the pitchers, spreaders and toothpicks. He carried the five gallon bucket back down the beach to the wetter sand and used it to scoop up a big chunk of the sand. “So here’s our starting sand.” He said, tipping the bucket and dropping the mound of sand right in the middle of her circle. “Do you want to start pressing that into the shape you want?”

She dived in immediately, scooping and shifting the sand until it roughly resembled a large square. “Do you want it to be bigger? Do we need more sand?”

“Yes, please!” He repeated the process and then came back one more time with the bucket full of sea water.

“Alright,” He said, settling onto his knee’s in the sand. “So the trick to building a great sand castle is to start with a big, dense block-“

“What does dense mean?”

“Uhm, it means heavy or thick.” He grabbed a handful of the sand from their pile, and a handful of looser sand from the ground to show her. “See how the sand looks different? This sand is more dense than this sand.”

“Okay.” She said, watching him closely.

“Right, so we take the dense sand, and make a big square out of it. If you need to add water, you can use the pitchers to scoop water from the bucket. Then, we use these nifty things,” He held up the paint spreader to shower her. “To shape and sculpt the sand how we want it. Got it?”

“Got it!”

They stayed in the sand for another two hours, building her perfect sandcastle. When she was satisfied, a large structure rose from the ground, complete with turrets, toothpick and leaf flags, and a huge moat. It was coming up on nine when they went back inside, and then Tony found himself at a loss again.

“So,” He asked, standing with his hands tucked into his pocket. “What do you want to do now?”

“I’m hungry.”

“Okay, what do you want to eat?”

“Pizza!”

“Pizza we can do. It’s too late to make it though, so we’ll have to order it.”

“You know how to make pizza?” She asked, sounding amazing.

“Sure, it’s not hard. I’ll let you in on a little secret.” She leaned towards him as his voice lowered to a whisper. “The pizza on this island isn’t very good.”

“Danno says the same thing!”

“That’s because your Dad knows what a real New York Style pizza tastes like. Maybe next time I make it, you can help me.”

“Okay! Can we do it tomorrow?”

“Ahh, we’ll have to see about that. You’ll probably be with you mom or dad tomorrow.”

He placed the order for the pizza while they headed to the living room.. “What do you want to watch?” Tony asked her once they were both comfortable. They’d both already changed clothes, having rinsed off with Steve’s hose before coming back inside the house.

“Can we watch something with animals?”

“Something with animals? I’m sure we can. Anything in particular?”

“No, you can pick.”

“You probably don’t know this, but I love movies.” Tony confided in her. “Do you like movies?”

“Yeah, but Mommy doesn’t let we watch them too much.”

“Your moms from England, isn’t she?” Grace nodded. “Have you ever seen ‘The Secret Garden?’”

“I don’t think so.”

“Let’s watch that then. I think you’ll like it.”

The pizza arrived part way through, but Grace was so enthralled in the film she didn’t even look away when he went to the door. He set a plate with the pizza on it beside her and she looked away briefly to shoot him a smile and a sweet ‘thank you.’ Her attention turned immediately back to the tv, and she sat and watched it quietly while she ate. Tony was watching the movie too, but he’d seen it before and it didn’t keep his attention like it did the little girl.

He fell asleep, head resting against the side of the chair, and didn’t wake again for almost an hour. When he did, it was to his body convulsing with a cough. When the episode finished, he sat up and realized he’d been covered up with a blanket. Grace was sleeping on the couch, covered with a blanket of her own, and ‘A Secret Garden’ playing over again on the screen.

He smiled slightly and ran his hands roughly over his face. He stood and headed into the kitchen, clearing his throat quietly as he went. Another glass of scotch was out of the question, now that Grace was with him, so he settled for brewing a cup of hot herbal tea and honey to try and sooth away the soreness.

Back leaning against the counter, he picked up his phone to text Steve. “How’s the case going?” He sent.

It took a couple of minutes for him to get a response. ‘Not well. Looks like it’s gonna be a long one. Rachel’s flying back to Oahu and will be there in the morning to get Gracie. Thanks for watching her.’

‘Not a problem. She’s a great kid.’

‘She is. Gotta go, I’ll call you later.’

‘Later.’

Tony washed and put away his cup, and then headed upstairs to bed.

~*~*~*~

Tony startled awake several hours later. He sat up, unsure what had woken him, but body tense and on edge. He listened intently for several seconds, but couldn’t hear anything but the gentle crash of waves outside. He glanced over at the clock and saw 8:04 glowing on the screen.

It was later than he normally slept, and it was then that he remembered Grace was downstairs. He pushed himself out of bed, realizing that one of the reasons he felt odd was because he was wore a pair of Steves sweat pants to bed, when he normally slept nude or in his briefs.

He pulled on a t-shirt and headed downstairs. Grace was curled up in the chair, reading a book quietly. She looked up when she heard him and smiled. “Good morning!” She exclaimed.

“Good morning, Grace.” He replied. “Did you sleep well?” She nodded at him happily. “Are you hungry?”

She nodded again. “Can we have pancakes?”

“Let’s see if Uncle Steve has the stuff.” He said, heading to the kitchen. Grace hopped up and followed behind him. Tony started pulling out ingredients and a bowl. “Do you like blueberries in your pancakes?” She nodded again with a wide smile. “Me too.” He said, grabbing the container of fresh berries he knew Steve normally kept in the fridge.  

Grace climbed up to sit on the counter and watch him work. “I talked to Uncle Steve last night. Your mom is coming to get you this morning.” He told her.

“Aw.” She said, pouting slightly. “I wanted you to teach me how to make pizza!”

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll talk to your dad and we’ll make a plan for me to teach you another time.”

“Okay.” She agreed, though she still looked disappointed. Tony felt a little glow at knowing that she wasn’t in a hurry to leave his company.

“I really liked that movie! It’s my new favorite.” She sat chattering away as he cooked and plated their breakfast, and continued chattering between bites.

Rachel knocked on the door just after ten.

“You must be Anthony.” She said when he opened the door, accented voice dainty.

“Just Tony.” He replied with a smile. “And you must be Rachel.”

“Yes. Daniel told me he left Grace with you. I do apologize if it caused you any inconvenience.” Her voice was strained. “I should really learn by now that just because it is his night with her doesn’t mean I’m actually free to leave the island.” She sounded slightly bitter with the last part, and Tony felt his smile stiffen.

“It’s not a problem at all. I’m in law enforcement as well, so I completely understand.”

“Of course.” She smiled tightly again before raising her voice slightly to carry. “Grace, Darling, it’s time to go.”

“Just a second!” Came her voice from the other room. She came running a second later with her tucking her arms through her back-pack straps. She started to head straight to her mom by paused and turned back to Tony. She darted forward and wrapped her arms around his waist for a quick hug. “Bye Uncle Tony!” She said, releasing him and moving back to the door. “Don’t forget to talk to Danno!”

“I won’t.” He promised, smiling down at her and then nodding politely to Rachel.

He could hear the little girl chattering all the way down the walkway.

~*~*~*~

Late Sunday afternoon, Tony got a call for a case of his own. He texted Steve to let him know, but wasn’t expecting a response back immediately. He hadn’t been home when he got the call, so when he arrived at the NCIS office, it was wearing a pair of dark wash jeans, a black short sleeve button up and his sunglasses.

He headed directly to the director’s office for a briefing and then met his team down in the bull pen to debrief them. “Good afternoon everyone, sorry to interrupt your Sunday. Approximately an hour and a half ago, Corporal Brian Chambers was abducted from the alley behind Kahuna’s Sports Bar & Grill. One of the bartender’s, Trent Smith, opened the emergency exit door at approximately 2:47 this afternoon, with the intention of smoking a cigarette.”

“When he opened the door, he witnessed the Corporal in a physical altercation with an unknown male, approximately 6’ with a stocky build and light brown hair. According to Smith, both men seemed pretty evenly matched. He said Corporal Chambers had the suspect pinned to the wall when the man pulled a syringe from his pocked and stabbed Chambers in the neck. Chambers collapsed, at which point Smith left the doorway to go and call 911. The alley was empty when he got back, but he did see what looked like a white or light-colored SUV speed away.”

“Corporal Chambers was in civvies, which is why we did not get the call until now. HPD was able to ID Chambers with facial recognition and called us when they got a match. That’s all we know so far. Graham, I want to know everything there is to know about Corporal Chambers, and why he would be the victim of a kidnapping.”

“Johnson, I want you to go over surveillance. The bar doesn’t have camera’s facing that door, but there may be other camera’s in the area that caught something. Palowunu, we’re going to the crime scene to see if HPD missed anything.”

~*~*~*~

Twenty-four hours later, they’d hit dead end after dead end. Their missing marine had an exemplary record, including being a bronze star recipient. He was single, his parents were both deceased and, aside from the other members of his squadron, no one seemed to know who he was. His CO said he was quiet, focused and ready for anything.

None of the surrounding buildings had surveillance that faced the alley, and no light-colored SUV’s passed by any surveillance in the surrounding area at the time of the abduction. If the bartender hadn’t happened to walk outside at the moment he did, it was likely no one would know the Corporal was even missing until he failed to report in, and even then would not have been declared UA until 24 hours had passed from his initial failure to appear. Tony straightened at the though. He sat forward and started typing into his computer, gaining the attention of his team.

“If there hadn’t been a witness to Corporal Chambers’ abduction, he would have been declared UA twenty-four hours after his failure to appear.” Tony repeated his train of thought out loud. “Because he does not have a family or anyone to report him missing, he would simply have been declared a deserter after thirty days and it would have been the end of it.”

“But Corporal Chambers lived for the Marine Corp. It was literally his whole life. Beyond that, the number of deserters have been dropping since 2007, and deserters from an Oahu base are extremely rare. Ah!” He exclaimed, finding the information he was looking for. “But there have been thirteen soldiers declared UA or AWOL between Pearl Harbor, Schofield and Hickman since January. Eight of them have been within the last three weeks.”

“That’s not possible.” Graham spoke up in disbelief. “We would have heard about it.”

“No, because they haven’t been marked as a deserter yet. The older five were spread over the three branches, so it wasn’t unusual enough to draw attention.” Tony studied his computer intently. “We need to go over all thirteen soldiers, see if they’re any connections or movement from them since their status change.”

After investigating the missing soldiers, it was discovered that only one of the thirteen had any activity since being declared a deserter, and he was living back on the mainland and working as a dishwasher at a diner.

The other twelve seemed to have vanished. Their bank accounts were untouched, their homes had been left filled with their belongings, and none of the twelve had a significant other or children who would have reported them missing.

It was nearing nine o’clock Monday night when they received confirmation of that, and Tony immediately took the information to the director. He was onscreen with SecNav within the hour.

“I’m telling you, Sir,” Tony implored the older man. “We have every reason to believe that all thirteen soldiers were abducted, not just Corporal Chambers. They’ve been ghosts since they disappeared, their bank accounts are untouched, their houses either still have their belongings, or were abandoned and had to be cleaned out before they could be relisted. We’ve had no leads, the SUV we think was used in Corporal Chambers abduction managed to evade all video surveillance, not to mention his abductor being able to subdue him in the first place.  This was a professional job, and until we know what the purpose of this is, we have no idea how many more soldiers might go missing.”

Jarvis studied him over the screen. “This is a very serious accusation, DiNozzo. Do you under the ramifications if I take this further up the chain and it turns out to be nothing?”

“Sir, all due respect, but I wouldn’t have brought it to you if I wasn’t already 100% sure.”

“Okay. Let me know when you have more information.”

“Yes, Sir.”

He felt a little lost when they had disconnected. There were no new leads, no hints, not even a damned bread crumb. The thirteen missing soldiers did not know each other, they had no one thing in common in their day to day lives, no families they could go to for clues. It seemed hopeless.

His head tilted and he turned the though over in his head again. They needed to see if there were any soldiers who had been reported missing. If that were the case, they wouldn’t have been listed as UA or AWOL, and so wouldn’t have made their list. And for that matter, they should look for retired and discharged personal. They could potentially be looking at a small part of their victim pool.

He headed back to the bullpen with a new purpose giving energy to his tired and achy body. His cough hadn’t waned, but rather had increased in frequency. Though he’d managed to keep most of it to himself, his team had become aware that he was less than well. Still, they hadn’t directly mentioned it, and Tony was good at acting better than he felt and pushing through the discomfort.

When the latest theory didn’t turn up anything, he gave in and sent the team home to get a decent night’s sleep. He didn’t know if it was the case, the constant ache that had set into his lungs, or the raw throbbing of his throat, but he tossed and turned all night, only getting maybe two or three hours of rest.

He rose at six, dressing in silence and then fixed himself a large cup of hot tea to take with him on the drive. He was back in his chair by six-thirty, trying to find something to give them a direction to go in. The rest of his team had joined him by seven-thirty, and he was being called to speak with the director just after eight.

He was informed that the mission persons case Five-O had been working the past several days might have a connection to their own case. Commander McGarrett was requesting the investigating team join them at the Palace so that the two teams could swap information and hopefully gain some insight from each other.  

Tony wanted to groan in frustration, even as he felt hopeful for the new potential lead. He knew he’d likely work with Five-O at some point in the future, but didn’t think it would be so soon. Any other time he’d be ecstatic at the chance, but he was just so _tired_. Steve would notice for sure, and the others likely would as well, having spent a substantial amount of time around him by this point. He wanted, no he needed, to focus all his energy on solving the case, not worrying about his own insecurities and limitations.

Still, he agreed. He’d had no choice but to agree, nor would he truly have wanted to. He’d never allow his own drama to interfere with a case and knew he’d just have to deal with it. They’d left immediately, all of the information loaded on a flash drive to load on Five-O’s network. They arrived at the Palace at nine, and were soon trading introductions in their tech room.

As expected, Steve had zeroed in on him immediately, and he was getting sideways glances from the others as well. So he’d avoided eye contact as well as he could, jumping in and starting to rattle off his SITREP as soon as the niceties were finished.

When he finished speaking, Steve spoke up for Five-O. “A couple of months ago, a man named Thomas Hoapili was found shot to death in the trunk of a car. It turned out that Hoapili was a part of a group of twenty-five that practiced an ancient Hawaiian art that consists mostly of hand-to-hand combat, called Kapu Kuialua, or Lua. He was taken captive and forced it fight in an underground flight club.”

“The fight night that he was in had two fights planned. The second one was with an MMA fighter and Hoapili, and we were able to track the movement of $200,000,000 for the two fights. The man who set up the fight for former MMA fighter Ramsey Pollack.”

“During our investigation, Hoapili’s daughter Maggie was taken and forced to fight against Cat Carrigan, another former MMA fighter who was kicked out of the professional circuit for her conduct. We were able to take down the ring, and everyone directly involved was arrested. That said, Pollack had ties with other Fight Clubs in Columbia, Russia and Thailand that we know of, so we’re already aware that there’s more of these guys out there.”

“Friday night, a man named Jason Alanike was abducted from his home in Aiea. We met Jason when we were at the Lua compound. He’s a Lua master, but the only people who know that are the other fighters and us. The only family Jason has is his grandfather, Kaka, who introduced him to the art.”

“Kaka lives on the compound, and is off-grid, for all intents and purposes. We heard about your case, about you having thirteen missing soldiers, and their lack of familial ties, we knew there might be a connection. No one off that compound would know about Kaka or his relation to Jason. To an outsider, Jason would look unattached.”

“We have reason to believe the missing soldiers, along with Jason, were taken by the larger fraction that runs the Fight Club’s. All of the missing soldiers except for two have gone missing since we took down the ring. The former two went missing almost exactly a month apart. We think the surge was in response to us shutting down the ring here, and we think their either getting ready for something big, or they’re getting ready to leave the island.”

“You think they’re abducting American Soldiers and forcing them to participate in a Fight Club?” Tony asked, faint disbelief audible in his voice.

Steve nodded seriously, brows furrowed. “We do.”

‘That’s crazy.’ Was on the tip of his tongue, but he thought about it. It made a twisted kind of sense. The soldiers who had gone missing were healthy, strong young men. They were hardly the first choice of target for most, and were all capable of putting up quite the fight. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made until it was the _only_ thing that made sense. The boys being capable of putting up a fight was the product, not a detriment. It’s why they were taken. “Alright.” He finally said instead. “So what’s the next step?

_~*~ TBC ~*~_

 


	3. Kauka Loli'i (Doctor Visit)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finally visits the doctor, and an old familiar face makes an appearance.

With all of the new information, the two teams were able to break into groups and look into a few new leads. Despite the hopeful start, they weren’t going anywhere fast. It was coming up on two o’clock. Tony knew he’d have to leave soon if he was going to make it to his appointment, but he was having a hard time disconnected from the case. It felt selfish to the missing men to walk away for something personal, and he finally ducked out to call the hospital.

“Yes, hi, this is Anthony DiNozzo and I have an appointment with Dr. Pauahi at 2:30. My team is wrapped up in an active investigation, and I was wondering what Dr. Pauahi’s next opening would be if I needed to reschedule?”   

“Yes, I can look at that for you. One moment please.” There was a long pause. “It looks like Dr. Pauahi’s next new patient appointment is May 17th at 10:30.”

Tony winced. It was May 3rd currently, so that would be another two weeks before he was seen. He rubbed his chest, turning it over in his head. “Okay, I think I’ll keep my appointment for today, that’s a little too far away. Thank you.”

He hung up and headed back to the tech room to check in. Before he could go to Palowunu, Steve zeroed in and made a beeline towards him. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” He asked, staring at him intently.

“Uhh.” Tony froze, eyes darting to his SFA and then to the clock on the wall. “Sure.”

Steve frowned at him and turned towards his office, Tony following reluctantly behind. When they were inside, Steve turned and sat against the front edge of his desk, arms crossed and scowly expression firm on his face. “Is something the matter?” He finally asked.

“What do you mean?” Tony responded, feeling a little trapped.

“What do I mean?” Steve repeated, frowning harder. “I mean you’re acting weird. You’ve been avoiding me all week- Aye, don’t try to deny it.” He said when it looked like Tony was going to speak up. His mouth clicked shut and really, it was true. “You’ve been avoiding me all week, and you’ve been avoiding me since you got here this morning. You’re in and out of here so much I can’t keep track of you, and you look like you haven’t slept in days. What’s going on with you?”

Tony’s eyes dropped to stare at a point on Steves shoulder. “Steve, now’s really not the time for this.” He tried.

“I think it is, because I don’t know where your heads at right now.”

“My heads on the case!” He exclaimed. “Where yours should be.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.” Tony said, glairing and crossing his arms.

Steve watched him silently for another long moment. “Okay.” He said finally. “We’ve got a lead. A new witness thinks she saw our SUV and our suspect. You can come with me to interview her.”

Tony cringed slightly. The timing really couldn’t have been worse. “Uh.” He stumbled, words sticking in his throat.

“What?” Steve asked, demanding edge coloring the word.

“I have somewhere I need to be.” He forced out as calmly as he could. “But I should be back in less than an hour.”

“Are you serious?” His voice had lowered, disbelief as clear on his face as it was in his tone.

Tony didn’t respond verbally, but it was clear in his stance that he was.

Steve shook his head and pushed himself off the desk. “Head’s on the case, huh?” he said when he passed by Tony on his way to the door. Tony waited in the office for a second after the other man left, bowing his head and pinching the bridge of his nose against his headache. He only allowed himself that brief pause before forcing his spine to straighten and chin to raise as he rejoined the others.

~*~*~*~

He walked into the clinic at 2:25, and was taken back almost immediately. The MA was friendly enough, chattering away as she took his vitals and asked him some routine questions. “The receptionist let the doctor know that you’re on a tight schedule. He should be right in.”

“Oh, great, thank you.” He said, shooting her a friendly smile.

True to his word, a middle-aged Hawaiian man entered the room wearing a while coat just a few minutes later. “Mr. DiNozzo, good afternoon, I’m Dr. Pauahi.”

“Nice to meet you.” Tony replied automatically.

The doctor was brusque, moving through the physical exam with smooth efficiency. “Well.” He said once he’d finished. “You have a low-grade fever, your blood oxygen level is resting at about 89%, you are tachycardic, and I can hear significant crackling in all four quadrants of your lungs. I would like to run some blood work, as well as get a new chest x-ray.”

“How long will that take?” Tony asked, unfamiliar with the new facility.

“We can get the x-ray now. The blood work will take a few hours to run. Have you done anything out of the ordinary lately? Have you been in contact with someone ill, been under an unusual amount of stress, travelled?”

“Yeah, actually. My partner and I flew over to Hawaii Island last weekend. We hiked Volcano National park on Saturday, and we went diving on Sunday.”

The man was frowning at him. “And when did you fly back?”

“Late Sunday night.”

“Well first of all, you should never to fly the same day you dive. That alone can cause a number of problems.”

“We’d been on land for twenty-four hours before we dove, and we stayed at about 600 feet on the flight back to lessen the risk.”

“Well that’s all well and good, but it’s still dangerous.” Tony nodded, choosing to accept the mild scolding and move on. “Beyond that, someone with your level of scaring should not be diving at all. Any change in pressure could cause your lungs to become inflamed. Nor should you be visiting volcanic sites, as the fumes released into the air could do the same.” He frowned and shook his head at Tony. “Dr. Pitt noted that you had a good grasp of your condition and were careful to maintain your health.” He sounded doubtful and Tony felt a flash of offence.

“I do, and I am.” He defended.

The man hummed, but didn’t comment. “Judging from your symptoms, it’s likely you have a case of chemical pneumonia. Have you noticed any blood in your sputum?” Tony shook his head. “Green or yellow?”

He shook his head again and spoke up. “The coughing has been mostly dry and harsh. It doesn’t feel wet, and coughing doesn’t lessen the feeling of needing to cough. It’s pretty constant.”

“Is there any pain associated with it?”

“My whole chest is aching, but it’s sharper when I cough. My throat also hurts, but I think that’s just from the coughing itself.”

“That’s very possible. Okay, I’ll be right back with the x-ray.” The MA returned right after he left to do the blood draw, and then he was waiting.

His phone rang. “DiNozzo.” He answered.

“Hey. The we got an ID from the lead we just talked to. We’re heading to his residence now.” Danny’s voice came, and he wasn’t sure if he should be happy or not that it wasn’t Steve that called.

“Alright.” Tony said, standing. “Text me the address, I’ll meet you there.” The door chose that moment to open, and the clutter of the large portable x-ray machine entering the room filled the space.

“What was that?” Danny asked.

“It was nothing, don’t worry about it. Look, I got to go. Text me that address.” He hung up before Danny could continue. “Look, Doc, I’m sorry, but we got a lead and I have to go meet my team. Can you just write me a prescription for a steroid inhaler and some anti-inflammatories? I’ve dealt with this before- well, I mean, the chemical part is new, but not the pneumonia. I know all the warning signs.”

The older man frowned sternly at him. “I don’t think you understand severity of your condition, Mr. DiNozzo.” He started, but Tony cut him off.

“It’s Agent DiNozzo, actually, and I do fully understand. But if I listened to every medical professional I’ve dealt with since this all happened, I would have taken a desk job and cut out all of my extracurricular activities by now. I know my limitations, and I know my body. I just need the medication.”

“Taking a desk job would be highly recommended, and from what you’ve told me of your extracurricular activities, I’d advise you stop those as well.” He blustered. “You are at a hugely increased risk of developing Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, which can be fatal. Not to mention Pulmonary hypertension and all of the other issues that can occur when you have as severely compromised lungs as you do.”

“I am aware of that.” Tony gritted out. “I’ve been living with it for years, believe it or not. “And I’ve never been heathier.”

“Yes, I can see that.” The man said drolly.

“Doctor, I really have to leave.” Tony said firmly. “Will you write me the prescriptions I need or not?”

The older man straightened, looking offended. “Yes, I will write you the prescriptions.” He finally said, “But I’m also writing you a letter excusing you from work for the next week, at which point I want to see you back for reevaluation.”

“I can’t take a week off a work.”

“If you care about your health, you will. And depending on how your lungs sound next week, it could be extended.”

Tony dropped his eyes to glare down at a corner of the room. He was so sick of hearing the same things over again. It was all he heard immediately following the plague, they told him he’d probably never distance run again, that he’d be unable to perform any extended aerobic activity and that it was possible he’d require oxygen on at least a semi-permanent level. They said he wouldn’t return to field work, that he’d never be able to pass the fitness test required for him to be an active agent.

Early retirement with full benefits had been offered, as his illness had been the direct result of his work. When he turned that down, they offered him a desk teaching at the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Charleston Training Academy, otherwise known as the NCIS FLETC. He’d turned that down too.

And he’d pushed, and fought, and forced his body into compliance. He ran, and he trained, and he built his endurance up until he beat his previous fitness records, and then he pushed himself farther still. He was determined to keep his position on the team, to the point of returning to the field before he was truly ready for the strain.

But he’d done it. He’d passed all their tests, and he beat all the odds, and he came back better than ever. And yet still, damn near a decade later, his diagnosis was the only thing some people saw. It was why he’d kept Brad as his permanent primary care physician, despite the man not normally taking on that roll and only treating patients for a short amount of time.

He knew what he was capable of, knew that he could out pace damn near anyone, because he’d scraped himself back together and made it possible. And another doctor throwing a tantrum about the “risks” he takes with his health, well, he’d dealt with it plenty before. So he forced a smile, accepted the three sheets of paper when they were handed to him and exited the room calmly.

Once he’d returned to the lobby, he crumpled the letter excusing him from duty into a ball and tossed it into the garbage on his way by. He ignored the bottle blonde at the desk calling after him and asking if he needed another appointment, and jogged down to his car. He plugged the address Danny had texted him into his GPS and set off.

It took him fifteen minutes to arrive, and the other’s arrived just after. “What have we got?” Tony asked curtly, moving to stand with his team. Palowunu pulled up a picture on his phone and showed him. “Jessica Richards worked down the street from the bar the Corporal was abducted from. She was on duty, and saw a white SUV speed away from the mouth of the alley around the time the bartender was on the phone with 911. She didn’t see the driver, but she did see a passenger matching the same partial description the bartender gave.”

“Why didn’t she come forward before?” Tony asked.

“She has an active warrant and did not want to interact with law enforcement. We had both witnesses work with a sketch artist, and both sketches were matched with our new suspect. His name is Mark Taylor, and he’s wanted in eight countries for charges ranging from human trafficking to the black-market ivory trade. He was captured by CCTV on the island three days ago, and we were able to track him down to this area. Going by process of elimination, we think he’s using this vacation rental as his base of operations while he’s on the island.”

“If everyone is up to date?” Steve spoke up, coming closer with a closed off expression on his face. Tony ignored the small slight as best he could, turning his attention back to his SFA.

“Anything else I need to know?” Tony asked Palowunu.

“Not immediately. Just be prepared, we’re expecting him to be armed and dangerous.”

“Alright.” Tony acknowledged, pulling his side arm free and nodding to Steve that he was ready to proceed.

In a weird parody, Steve pared up Tony with Danny, himself with Palowunu, Chin with Johnson and Kono with Graham. They split up to approach the building from all sides and were about fifty yards or so away when Tony noticed their suspect from the corner of his eye. Taylor was across the street and it looked like he’d been heading to the house when he noticed their approach. When he saw that Tony spotted him, he immediately turned and fled the opposite direction.

“Taylor has been spotted and he’s on the move going Northwest. In pursuit.” Tony reported into his com as he gave chase, Danny right behind him.

“Copy.” Steve’s voice came in his ear, but Tony ignored it, focusing on drawing practiced breaths and forcing his feet to move faster and faster. The suspect was fast, and Danny was quickly falling behind.

“Mark Taylor, NCIS- FREEZE!” He commanded, he demanded more out of habit than an actual hope the suspect would comply. As expected, Taylor continued to flee, darting in and out of traffic, and swerving down side streets and alley ways in his efforts to lose his pursuer. The man was pulling further ahead of them, unafraid of pushing bystanders into their path or of doing damaging as he fled.

They finally came to a street that was relatively empty of pedestrians. A white SUV pealed to a stop at the end of the block and the back passenger door opened. Taylor was thirty yards from reaching it when Tony slowed to a light jog, the words ‘fuck this’ just audible under his breath, as the weapon held loosely in his hand came up.

“Hey!” Danny’s voice blared loudly in his earwig and from behind him both. “We need him alive!”

Tony ignored the irate tone as he fell into stance, steading his breath, relaxing his shoulders and taking careful aim at the moving target. He pulled back on the trigger and watched in satisfaction as the man fell, letting out a shout of pain and trying to clutch at his right buttock.

Danny caught up to him then, slowing to a stop just the slightest bit out of breath. “Nice shot.” The blonde man said sarcastically. “But it’s good, this is good, because if you hadn’t missed you would have killed our only lead!” He continued, ending in a shout.

Tony looked directly at him, face stony and derisive and at the end of his patience for the day. “What about that makes you think that I missed?” He challenged before he turned away. The car had sped away when Taylor fell, but he hoped one of the other agents joining them from various points had managed to get a license plate at least. He strode calmly to the blubbering man lying on the ground, noticing from his peripheral vision the rest of the teams joining them on the street, almost immediately followed by HPD and an ambulance.

“You know,” He started conversationally as he came to stand over the flailing body. “When a federal agent tells you to freeze- it’s not a request.” He said, leaning down to casually slap cuffs around his wrists. He pulled him roughly to his feet, causing Taylor to let out a pitiful moan and try to shift his weight to his good leg. “Oh, quite whining, it’s just a little bullet hole. We haven’t even gotten started yet.” He forced him to take a couple of steps towards the arriving EMTs. When they reached the pair with a stretcher, Tony let him fall roughly onto it. “I’ll see you soon.” He promised. He stood and watched as the man was loaded and a HPD officer entered behind to escort them to the hospital.

His team came to stand around him to report. “We were able to get a partial license plate number, and a good description of the car, Boss.” Johnson said, looking down at her notepad. “White Lincoln Navigator with custom rims, first three letters of the license plate are HGX, and there were three men inside. The driver looked Hawaiian, but the two passengers were white.”

“Good job. Run it, I want to know who these guys were _yesterday_.” He ordered and turned to head back to where they’d left the cars. They needed to get back to the office, HPD and Five-O could deal with interviewing the other witnesses and dealing with the press. Although… “Palowunu, I need you to stay here until this disperses. _Nothing_ gets leaked to the press, understand? Nothing.”

“You got it, Boss.” The man agreed and turned to head over to talk to the HPD commander. Though Tony was trying to ignore them, his eyes brushed over Five-O as he turned around. Danny was still glaring at him, arms crossed tightly across his solid chest. Kono had her hands on her hips and was watching the scene with sharp eyes. Chin was watching him, his own face blank, and damn it if Steve didn’t look _amused_.

Tony turned away from the sight, scanned the crowd for any suspicious looking bystanders. He had to do a double take when he saw a familiar face standing behind a group of civilians, observing the scene with the cool detachment he was known for in their previous encounters. The other man’s eyes met his, and a small smirk curled his mouth as he started making his way slowly and casually over to where Tony was standing to the side.

His presence stood out from the civilians around them, and the Five-O team, as well as his, were immediately on alert at the approach. While Five-O immediately had weapons trained on him, his own team took their cues from Tony and kept their own guns holstered.

The newcomer did not look intimidated at the weapons aimed at him, nor did he give them more than the briefest, amused, glance as he came to a stop directly in front of Tony. His hands were tucked loosely into the pockets of his black jacket and it was clear he did not feel threatened.

“Malachi.” Tony said after a moment.

“Tony.” The man replied in the same tone, lowering his head slightly in acknowledgement. “I had heard you were on the island now. I wondered if I might run into you at some point.” He continued in his softly accented voice.

“And so you did.” Tony commented in return. “What brings you here?”

“Oh, nothing you need to concern yourself with.” He responded blithely.

Tony smiled sharply. “If the Mossad is operating on Oahu, I definitely need to concern myself.” He saw Five-O closing ranks around the two of them, his own team still standing at his back, but giving him the illusion of privacy if nothing else.

“I assure you, we are not here to cause the US any problems.”

“We?”

The man smiled again. “We will not be here long.” He said in lieu of answering the question. “Please, tell your attack dogs that their behavior is unnecessary.” He requested, acknowledging the presence of the others for the first time with a tilt of his head.

“I’m not sure it is unnecessary. You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here, or how many of your operatives are here with you. Tell me, are you here legally this time, or did you guys just sneak in again? Cause it kind of sounds like you snuck in.”

His amused look was back and he shook his head lightly at Tony. “Perhaps we can meet later and share some Gefilte fish. Unless you truly were just being anti-sematic all those years ago? I might even be so inclined as to share with you the nature of our visit over a meal between friends.”

“I honestly wouldn’t even know where to get something like that here. I’m new to the island, if you’ll remember.” He deflected, hiding his grimace.

The other man looked away and scanned the crowd himself. “There is a place called ‘Oahu Kosher’ that sells a Gefilte Fish _Loaf_.” He said, pronouncing the words like they were odd to him. “I have heard they are very good. Meet me there, tonight at six, and we will discuss business. For now, I must go.” He said, turning to leave. “Oh,” he said, pausing once. “And as fun as this all is, please do come alone.”

Tony made no move to stop his departure, and Steve and Danny both stepped back to allow him to pass, though neither fully lowered their guns. Tony’s eyes remained fixed on his back until he disappeared around the end of the block, and even then continued to stare at the spot he disappeared, mind racing with the possibilities.

He finally pulled his eyes away and scanned the crowds once more. “Let’s get going. We have work to do.” He said finally.

_~*~ TBC ~*~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the shortness of the chapter, but this felt like a good place to stop. Enjoy!


	4. Aina Aliʻi (Foreign Officer)

Tony made a quick stop to a pharmacy near the Palace to drop off the prescriptions and then met the other back at headquarters. Everyone was scrambling, Kono and Graham trying to follow the SUV on CCTV footage, Chin trying to match the plates based on the information they already had, Steve and Danny were standing together by the computer table, discussing god knows what, Johnson was looking deeper into Taylors records and Palowunu was still at the scene of the arrest dealing with the media crews that refused to leave without a story.

Tony himself had just gotten off a video call with SecNav to update him on their progress. He’d held off on mentioning the Mossad, wanting more concrete information as to why they were on American Soil before deciding how to proceed. He was pinching the bridge of his nose again, hoping against hope it’d relieve some of the pressure building in his head.

Steve and Danny’s conversation seemed to get more heated, though still quiet, causing Chin to look over at the pair more than once. They finally seemed to reach a conclusion and turned to head in his direction, Chin following them with his eyes and an uncertain expression on his face.

“So are you going ta meet this guy or what?” Danny asked, blunt as always with his hands tucked deep into his pockets. Steve crossed his own arms and kept silent, clearly taking on an observant roll over an active one in the conversation.

Tony glanced down at his watch and nodded tiredly. His residual anger from earlier had faded with time, and fatigue had settled back into his bones. He felt a little foolish at how dramatic he’d been that afternoon and a part of him wished he could just reset the day and start over.

He already had a pretty good idea of why the other man was there- Mossad agents were some of the absolute best fighters in the world. If this Fight Club ring was really as powerful as it was shaping up to be, it would stand to reason that the slavers would want one to play with. Still, it’d be years since he last saw the other man, and he’d need to be on his toes, despite their tentative friendship.

 “You ready to get wired up, then?” The short man asked, crossing his burly arms.

“Excuse me?” Tony asked, still kind of distracted and not entirely sure if he’d heard him right.

Danny glanced over at Steve and then back at Tony. “I said, are you ready to get wired up?”

“I’m not wearing a wire.” Tony stated calmly, leaning back further in his borrowed chair to look at the standing men more directly.

“Yes, you are.” Steve said, speaking up for the first time. “And we’re gonna have you under surveillance. We’ve already got an officer stationed inside the restaurant as a customer, and we’re going to have another one be in the kitchen.”

“No you’re not, and you’re going to recall the one inside.”

Steve looked at him in disbelief, while Danny seemed to puff up in size. “What the hell’s the matter with you?!” He demanded. “Of course you’re going to be under surveillance. Are you crazy?”

Tony shook his head, annoyance that had sparked so easily to life just hours before fizzled out. “Do you have any idea who this guy is?” He asked calmly, tiredly.

They traded another look. “Why don’t you fill us in.” Steve said.

“His name is Malachi Ben-Gidon, and he’s the team leader of the Kidon Unit of the Mossad. He was Ziva’s superior officer, once upon a time.” He said, directing the last directly to Steve, who’d had the displeasure of meeting the woman once before. 

“Look, he’s dangerous and he’s proud. Despite our history, it wouldn’t be too hard to offend him. He’s intelligent, and he’s observant; he’ll probably notice the wire, and he’ll definitely notice the UCs. If he thinks I’m trying to trick or trap him somehow, or if he questions my motivations at all, he’ll disappear. We won’t be able to find him again if he doesn’t want to be found. Trust me, he’s not someone you want running around as a loose cannon.”

 “Okay, we need to talk. In private.” Steve demanded quietly, turning and striding angrily into his office. Danny did not follow and Tony tried to ignore the looks he could see being shot their way through the mostly open blinds. The situation felt early reminiscent of the one earlier in the day.

“So let me get this straight.” Steve began as soon as the door had closed behind them. “You’re going to sit there and tell me how dangerous this guy is, in order to explain why would should be going in without any surveillance or backup. How exactly does that make sense to you?!” He demanded, arms crossed and muscles flexing in his agitation.

 “Would you lower your voice?” Tony said, slightly louder than he’d been before. Steve reared back as if struck, face going calm and stony and body going tense in an instant. Tony hesitated for a second, but pushed forward. “Look, I know Malachi, I’ve worked with him a few times before. He’s an arrogant asshole, but he’s not a bad guy. I think I know why he’s here, and I think I can get him to work with us.”

“Why?”

“Think about it, Steve. We know these people have ties all over the world. Do you really think American Soldiers are the only one’s they’d be interested in?”

“No, I guess not.” Steve said, frowning slightly in thought. “You think he’s here because a Mossad agent was taken?”

“I’d put money on it.” Tony replied surely. “Think about.” Tony said again. “You said he had ties internationally, and the Mossad have ties to all three of the countries you named. If they are getting ready for a big show down, or to leave the island, where will they go? Where’d they come from? They can’t have been here the whole time, the soldiers have only been going missing for the last few months. I think it jumps from country to country, place to place. They probably have established locations they rotate through, because they’d need a secure place for their fighters to be held constantly. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine a Mossad agent being taken along the way.”

“Okay, so say that’s true. Knowing his agenda is similar to ours doesn’t automatically mean we should work with the guy. It doesn’t make him any less dangerous.”

“Doesn’t it?” Tony shook his head. “He’s not going to do anything to me. Especially in a public venue. You’re being paranoid. Me going in alone is the best plan.”

“That’s not going to happen. I’ve dealt with the Mossad before too, and there’s no way in hell I’m letting you walk into that situation with one of them on your own.”

“Steve, I’ve been alone with him plenty of times before. Like I said, we’ve worked together a few different times. This is my contact, I should have say in how he’s handled.” Tony argued stubbornly.

“Your director turned the case over to Five-O, we’ve got primary lead. If you think he has some connection with this case, then that makes this my decision.” Tony stiffened and drew back slightly. Steve shook his head and scrubbed a hand harshly over his face.

“It might not even have anything to do with the case. I could be wrong.”

They both knew that was unlikely, and the look Steve shot Tony clearly told him how he felt about the attempted turnabout. He sighed heavily through his nose and sat down on the edge of his desk. “Look at this from my perspective: We’re working a case that likely involves at minimum fourteen missing Americans. These people have global ties and more money than a small nation. This guy just happens to show up, out of the blue, at the exact time we make contact with our first suspect. Now he wants you to meet him, alone, across the city. It’s my job to ensure everyone under my command operates safely, especially with how much about his we _still don’t know_. Right now, that includes you.”

Tony frowned at him, wanting to argue on principle but knowing the other man was right. If the same situation was occurring to one of their team members, Tony would be suspicious as well. He realized then that he might be being argumentative more due to how awful he felt than for a justifiable reason.  

Steve saw the hesitation and pounced on it. “Wear a wire, Tony, please.” More emotion leaked into the request than he’d been showing for the remainder of their conversation, and Tony’s chest throbbed seemingly as a result.

Tony sagged slightly in place, running a tired hand through his hair. When he didn’t respond immediately, Steve continued. “Look, I don’t know what’s up with you, or why you’re pushing me away. If I did something, I’m sorry,” he proclaimed. “Truly, but you can’t ask me to stand by and watch you walk into a dangerous situation, with no communication and no backup.”

“What? No, Steve you didn’t do anything.” Tony sighed heavily through his nose, pinching its bridge once again. “This is,  it’s,” he sighed again as Steve continued to watch him stoically. “Okay. We need to have a conversation, but right now, I need to focus on the case. I promise, once it’s over, we can talk.”

It didn’t seem to reassure Steve, and if anything he seemed to close off further. He drew himself up, shoulders tense and jaw clenched. Tony realized how it might have come across and grimaced again. He started to speak up again, to fix his wording, but Steve did before he could.

“Fine. After the case. But I still want you to wear a wire.” He stated neutrally, and Tony found he couldn’t read his expression.

“It’s that important to you?” At Steve’s nod, he signed again, quieter. “Fine, I’ll wear a wire. But I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Thank you.” Steve said, ignoring the last part. He turned to leave his office, but Tony stopped him with a discrete hand on his arm. He couldn’t let the conversation end like that, or he’d be on edge until they resolved it.

“How long’s it been since you went home?” Tony questioned softly, taking in the tired lines etched into Steve’s own face, and the circles that were taking root under his eyes.

“I was home this morning.” Steve replied blandly, still tense and frowning at the shorter man.

“To sleep or to shower?” Steve shot him a sharp look and kept his silence and Tony dropped the line of questioning, feel a sick pit churn in his stomach. It felt like things were spinning out of control, and he didn’t know how to right it. Steve was like a blank wall and Tony knew it was his fault, but it didn’t make the frosty reception feel any better.

He needed to tell Steve about his lungs, he acknowledged that, if only to himself. Steve obviously knew there was something Tony was keeping from him, and it was putting heavy strain on their relationship. Steve had just as many trust issues as Tony, so of course he’d react strongly to his significant other suddenly keeping a secret.

But it had to wait, he couldn’t allow anything to get in the way of solving the case as soon as physically possible. And at that moment, after days of dead end after dead end, he felt hopeful at the way things were finally moving. He was certain talking to Malachi would gain them new insight and he knew he needed to head out soon.

“Okay.” Tony said softy, turning his body so that it was blocking most of Steve’s own from view. He reached out and ran a hand lightly down Steves side in a move familiar to them both. The other man softened, just the tiniest amount. “How about this,” he began, voice quiet and almost wheedling. Steve frowned at him slightly, but not as darkly as he had been before. “I’m gonna go talk to Malachi. I will wear a wire, and you can keep one UC in the kitchen, but not in the dining room. We’ll see what he has to say, and then I’ll stop for Loco Moco on my way back, and we can all take a break while we eat. And we’ll agree that if he don’t have any new leads by nine tonight, we’ll send everyone home to sleep, and start fresh in the morning.”

Steve looked at him contemplatively. “Alright.” He agreed after a pause. “But you have to come back to mine tonight.” He bargained.

“Okay.” He agreed, only pausing slightly. “I’ll come back to yours.” He wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but if things came out at least they’d be in the open and they could deal with it. Steve smiled at him, just for a second, but it was an honest smile and Tony felt an optimistic feeling surge through him. They’d be okay, they just needed to break the case and move on.  

With their new agreement in place, they rejoined the rest of the agents out in the main part of the room. “Kono, we’re ready for that wire.” Steve said, speaking up.

“Sure thing.” She replied readily, moving across the room towards them. “I need you to unbutton your shirt.” She told Tony, shooting him a playful look. The light moment drew a real, if short, grin from him and he shook his head even as he moved to comply.

He took his suit jacket and tie off completely, wanting to look less obviously like a fed for the next couple of hours. It left him in a pair of black pants and a deep purple shirt. He unbuttoned the shirt, allowing her to tape the contraption into place. “Hey, watch the hair.” He told, pouting as she taped right over it.

“Oh, don’t be a baby.” She rebuked, continuing unheeded. When she was finished, he rebuttoned the shirt, sans the top two buttons, and then rolled his sleeves up for a more casual look.

“How do I look?” He directed at her.

“Smokin.” She replied with a grin

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road.” He said, patting himself down to make sure he had his cell and wallet.

“We’ll be monitoring you the whole time.” Chin said, speaking up for the first time in a while. “If things go south, we’ll pull you out.”

“Guys, despite what you seem to think, this isn’t an op, okay? Everything is going to be fine and I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Oh! Speaking of, when did the hospital say we’d be able to talk to our suspect?”

“He’s in surgery to remove the bullet now, Boss.” Johnson spoke up. “They’re not gonna let us talk to him until morning.” Tony nodded, frowning slightly.

“Alright. See you in a bit.” He made eye contact with Steve once more before turning to leave the building. He was half way down the stairs when the other man caught up to him. He started walking beside him silently, but Tony could feel him shooting sideways looks at him.

When they reached his car, Tony turned to face him directly. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know, I just have a bad feeling. Be careful, okay?”

Tony frowned, searching his face. He felt a pit in his stomach for the first time and shook his head to try and shake it off.

“Steve, really, everything’s going to be fine.”

“Yeah, probably. Just, be careful.”

“I will.” Tony promised and took a step closer. His hand came up to cup the back of Steve’s head and he pulled the other man into a chaste kiss. “I’ll see you soon.”

Steve returned the kiss, and Tony could feel his disgruntlement with the situation in the tenseness of his frame. He pulled away and turned to get into his car. Steve stepped back out of the way of his door, and remained standing there until Tony disappeared from sight.

~*~*~*~

When he arrived at his destination, Malachi was already seated at a table in the restaurant, his back to a small corner, but leaving his two open pathways immediately from the table. Two cups sat full on the table, and his companion was calmly watching the other patrons in the room.

“I hope you do not mind, I have ordered for us already.” He said when Tony approached. He gestured to the other chair. “Sit, please.”

Tony did as directed, reaching forward for the waiting cup. “So.” Tony said after a second of silence. “Want to tell me what brings you to our fair country this time?”

“You’ve not figured it out yet?” a dark brow arched.

“I have an idea, but I’d like confirmation.”

The other man looked down and took a slow sip. “The men who observe us. You trust them?” He asked Tony.

Tony’s mouth curled into a crooked smile. He knew the other man would know, but at least he didn’t seem upset about it. “I do.” He responded, not trying to deny their presence.  

“But you do not trust me?”

“Should I? You still haven’t answered my question.”

They both quieted as a waiter brought over their food and did not speak again until he walked away.

“You did not follow my request to come alone.” Malachi stated when they were alone again.

“Yeah, sorry about that. My team didn’t really like your vibe.” He said glibly. Malachi smiled slightly in amusement.

“Well, I suppose I can not blame them for that.”

Tony smiled back and then and then sobered. “Why are you here?” He asked a final time.

“This case you are working, your soldiers are being taken, yes?” Malachi responded.

“Yes.” Tony acknowledged, not bothering to beat around the bush. 

“One of my agents were taken.” He said, dabbing his mouth lightly with a napkin. “I have tracked them here. But you already suspected as much, did you not?”

“I did.” Tony replied and then looked down at his plate. “This is delicious, by the way. What is it?”

“It is a mushroom and potato knish.”

“Huh. Anyway. Yes, I did suspect that. What are you planning to do about it?”

“Is it not obvious?” Malachi frowned at him. “I will retrieve him.”

“How are you going to do that. Do you know where he’s being held?”

“I do.”

“Where?” Tony asked, leaning forward. “Are they all being held in the same place?”

“They are.”

“Where?” Tony asked again.

“I will tell you their location once my agent has been released.”

“How about you tell me now.”

“So you can prevent me from completing my mission? I don’t think so.”

“We can come up with a plan together. You breaking out your agent might tip them off. We can’t risk that happening before we make our move.”

“That is not my concern.”

“Then why even let me know you’re here? I know I wouldn’t have seen you if you didn’t want me to. What was the point?”

“I wanted to know how you like your new home.” He stated carelessly. “I can see why you moved here. This is a beautiful place.”

“More beautiful than Israel?”

“Bah! How would you even remember, it’s been so long since you were there. You never did make it to Jerusalem.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

Malachi shrugged elegantly. “It is your loss, my friend.”

“How’s Liat? You guys still ‘not anything serious?’”

Malachi smiled slightly. “We are still sleeping together, if that is what you mean.”

“Nothing more than that? Really? After all these years?”

“I am her superior officer. It would be inappropriate to be in a relationship with a subordinate.” 

“But it’s okay to sleep with one?”

He shrugged. “So long as there remains no emotional connection.”

“If you say so.” Tony said, shooting him an strange look. He took another bite of his food and chewed thoughtfully. Once he swallowed he opened with, “Work with us.”

Malachi shook his head immediately. “It would not be working with you. It would be working under NCIS jurisdiction. The last time I agreed to do so, one of my men were killed. Why should I do so again?”

Tony’s eyes dropped to the table. “You know I’m sorry about Hadar. We never meant for that to happen.”

“It is not intent that matters though, is it?”

“No, I guess not.” Tony frowned slightly, deep in though. “What if you weren’t under NCIS jurisdiction?”

“How do you mean?” He looked the tiniest bit intrigued.  

“This is already a joint case between my team and the Five-O task force. Five-O technically has lead, so you wouldn’t be working under NCIS, you’d be working under a Task Force. Completely different rulebook.”

Malachi tilted his head, studying him. “NCIS or Five-O, we are on American soil and we would be under American jurisdiction. I do not think your government would be accepting of my team operating here without permission.”

“Let me worry about that.”

“You are asking me to put the life on my agent in the hands of strangers.”

“And you’re asking me to put the lives of fourteen Americans on the promise that you’re not going to fuck up your extraction. Come on, Mal. Even you have to admit that sometimes, things just go wrong. You can’t prepare for every eventuality. I know what kind of man you are, and I know you wouldn’t take that big of a risk while knowing there is a more promising option available.”

“I do not work with people I do not trust, and I do not trust those whom I do not know.”

“You didn’t know me the first time you worked with me.”

“No, but I knew of you.” Amusement flashed over his features once again.

“I’m not asking you to trust them. I’m asking you to trust me.”

“I will tell you what. I will hear what you have to say and then decide if I am willing to work jointly with you.

Tony smiled at him charmingly. “I’m sure we can come up with a plan we’re all happy with.” His smile faded. “Do you have any other orders pertaining to this op, or anything else to do with you being on American soil that we should be aware of ahead of time?”

“Not so long as we succeed.”

“And if we don’t?”

Malachi met his eyes squarely and took a long moment before he spoke. “If extraction is impossible than my mission becomes one of elimination.”

Tony didn’t flinch. He’d been expecting something along those lines when he’d probed. He knew how brutal and merciless the Mossad could be, knew they wouldn’t allow an agent to remain in a position of which they, or their knowledge of the Mossad and its operations, could be exploited. And he knew how seriously the other man took his orders and his position as the leader of the Kidon. It didn’t matter whether or not he liked the orders he’d been given, he would see them through regardless. So Tony didn’t try to argue, or try and convince him that was too extreme a measure. Instead, he shook his head slightly enough that it was more of a jerk than a true shake, and stated “It’s not going to come to that.”

“I hope not.” Malachi replied somberly.

~*~*~*~

The two men finished their meal, more or less in silence, though they did exchange some small talk in between bites. It might have felt awkward or stifling to some, but Tony had always felt a sense of kinship with the darker man, from the first time they met in Israel. Though Malachi was more stoic and less openly expressive in his expressions, he and Tony shared a very similar sense of humor and demeanor. They’d formed something of a bond that first time they worked together, and, as tentative as it was, it had survived working together again despite the loss of Hadar.

He was banking on that kinship to keep the Mossad team working with them. He knew if Malachi didn’t like what they had to say, he would disappear and resume operating on his own. He also knew that with as huge as this slave fighting ring was shaping up to be, they’d stand a better chance of succeeding if they worked together. They’d agreed to meet first thing in the morning to discuss their strategy and parted ways.

Once Tony was back in his car, he pulled out his phone and dialed Steve. The other man answered immediately. “See, nothing to worry about.” Tony told him after they exchanged greetings.

“Yeah, alright.” Steve acknowledged. “You on your way back, then?”

“Yeah, just gonna stop and get food for everyone and I’ll be there.”

“Alright, see you in a few.”

“See you.”

He hung up the phone and dialed the restaurant so they could start preparing his large order while he drove. He pulled into the parking lot of the pharmacy and ran inside to pick up his prescriptions. He had the small bag in his hand and was unlocking the door of his car when he noticed the reflection of a man in his car window coming towards him. He didn’t pay it any attention at first, the man being a few spaces away still.

His phone rang again in his pocket. He let go of the keys to pull the phone free, cursing quietly as the corner of it got stuck on his pocket. At the same time, he used the hand holding the bag to reach forward and pull the keys free and opened the door. He tossed the bag down on the seat and finally got his phone out.

“Brad Pitt.” Flashed on the screen and he frowned in confusion. His finger hovered over the ‘accept’ button as he debated on whether or not he wanted to take the call. Before he could decide, he noticed the man who had been approaching was now right behind him. He started to turn to see what he needed when he saw a blur of motion and felt a sharp pain split over the back of his head.

He fell forward against his car with an ‘ _umph_.’ His vision immediately went dark and he tried to stay conscious, tried to fight through the blackness overtaking his vision, but then he felt a needle in his neck and lost the struggle.

~*~*~*~ Approximately one hour later, at Five-O headquarters ~*~*~*~

Steve glanced down at his phone for the third time in a minute.

“Man, he’s probably just stuck in traffic or something. Would you quit worrying so much?” Danny’s voice came from the door of his office. Steve glanced up at his partner, frown etched into his face.

“Something doesn’t feel right, Danny.” Steve said seriously. “He should have been here by now. And it’s almost nine on a Tuesday night. How much traffic could there be?”

“So call him.”

“I did, he didn’t answer.”

“So maybe he left his phone in the car while he ran in to get the food.”

“Tony doesn’t ever leave his phone.”

“Maybe he forgot it.”

“He doesn’t forget.” Steve argued stubbornly. “There’s two thing Tony always has on him, his phone and a knife. It’s something is old boss drilled into him, always be reachable. And while we’re working a case? No. He wouldn’t have left his phone, and even if he had, he would have called me back by now.”

“So call him again.”

“I will.” Steve picked up the phone and hit speed dial once again. It rang and rang, and then went to voicemail. “He’s still not answering. Something’s wrong.” He pushed himself up out of his chair and ducked past the man in the doorway. “Kono, I need you to trace Tony’s phone.”

“Uh,” The woman looked up at him wide eyed. The other NCIS agents eyed him as well, various expressions on their faces. “Is something wrong?” She asked, frowning slightly.

“Tony should have been back at least thirty minutes ago, and he’s not answering his phone.”

“Well, maybe he’s stuck in traffic and his phone died.”

“No.” Steve denied, growing more frustrated. “It’s not going straight to voicemail, it’s ringing first. Just run his phone, I’m not asking, Kono.”

“Okay,” She responded and began typing on the computer table, eyes looking up to meet both Danny’s and Chin’s. A map popped up on the screen mounted to the wall. “He’s in a side parking lot at ‘Long’s Drugs?’ On South King Street. That’s only a mile from here boss.”

“He’s not moving.” Steve said after a minute of watching the screen. “I’m driving over there.”

“I’ll come with you.” Danny said, and Steve didn’t argue. The made the drive in record time and were soon pulling into an empty spot next to Tony’s car. Steve got out immediately and went over to the black mustang.

Tony wasn’t in the car, but Steve approached the driver door and peered down into it. A generic white paper bag was tossed haphazardly down on the driver seat, Tony’s phone and keys next to it. Steve reached out and gently tugged on the door handle. It opened easily at his touch and he exchanged a quick look with Danny.

He reached in and picked up the familiar phone. The screen flashed ‘4 missed calls,’ and ‘New Voicemail.’ He’d only called Tony three times, so he went into the call log to see when the first missed call had occurred. He frowned down at the screen and then tilted it towards Danny to see. The last three calls had been Steve’s. The forth one was interestingly from a ‘Brad Pitt.’

“Tony knows Brad Pitt?” Danny questioned, voice odd and brow raised.

Steve’s head tilted. “Not that I know of.” The missed call had come in at 7:42, and the one before that had been the conversation he’d had with Steve while leaving the restaurant at 7:23. His eyes darted to the clock on the corner of the screen. It read 8:54.

Next, he reached for the pharmacy bag, feeling like he was invading the other mans privacy as he pulled out the receipt and scanned for the timestamp. Without really meaning to, the names ‘ _Formoterol_ ,’ and ‘ _Azithromycin’_ caught his eye. Though he recognized the ‘ _mycin_ , as an antibiotic, he didn’t know what either of them would be used for, and he didn’t pull the boxes out to investigate further. The time stamp on the receipt read ‘7:39.’

Steve shook his head, straightening to meet Danny’s eyes. “He picked this up at seven thirty-nine. That was an hour and fifteen minutes ago. Where the hell is he, Danny?”

_~*~ TBC ~*~_


	5. Ia: Ke Kuleana o Kekahi (Taken: Part 1)

Steve was on the phone almost immediately, requesting a crew to come out and sweep the car for evidence. Even as he spoke, he was searching the buildings for cameras that might have picked up on something. He told Chin to start pulling surveillance of the area, and that he and Danny would be back after they were done with Tony’s car.

When he hung up, Danny was shaking his head. “We should go back now, and come back for the car later.”

“We can’t leave his car here, Danny, he loves this car. It’s a miracle it wasn’t already stolen, with the door unlocked and the keys on the seat.”

“Maybe that was the intention.” Danny replied. “Maybe whoever took him was hoping someone would steal the car for him and he wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Alright, you take my car and go back to the Palace. I know you’re gonna go nuts if you can’t do anything. I will wait here for them to finish, and then I’ll bring the car back. How’s that?”

Steve didn’t have to think about it very long. His knuckles were already clenched, and he wanted to start doing _something_ to find his missing partner. He nodded slowly, eyes locked on the familiar cell laying careless in the same position on the seat it’d been in when they arrived. “The wire.” He spoke aloud suddenly. “He’s still wearing his wire.” He pulled his own cell out again and dialed. “Kono, can you pull footage from the wire, from the time Tony left the meeting? He should still be wearing it.”

“I can’t pull footage, because we had it turned off once he left the restaurant. But I can turn it back on and see if it’s still picking up anything.”

“Great, do that. I’m on my way back now.”

“You got it, boss.” She replied, already typing away.

Steve hung up and looked back over at Danny. He hesitated. “You sure you’re okay with this?”

“It’s fine. Go.” He said shooing him back over to his own car as he continued. “I’ve heard him talk about his car too. Trust me, I don’t want anything to happen to it any more than you do. We’d never hear the end of it.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Steve said, getting in and shooting a strained, barely there, smile up at him.

“We’re gonna get him back.” Danny said in reply. Steve nodded silently as Danny shut the door for him. He started the car and pulled away with a screech of tires. He used the lights and made it back to the palace in about three minutes, and was entering the office inside of four.

“What have we got?” He asked broadly when he entered. Kono spoke up first.

“He’s still wearing the wire, and we were about to turn it back on, but it’s not giving us much.”

Steve walked over to where she was standing and she turned the audio to speaker rather than the head set she’d been listening to. The sound of labored breathing could be heard, and the occasional scuff that sounded like it came from stone. Steve frowned, listening intently for a long minute. “Okay.” He said finally. “If this is the same people who are kidnapping soldiers, it’s likely they injected Tony with the same drug. He’s probably still passed out, or he’d be trying to communicate with us somehow. I want someone monitoring this feed continuously, and I want to know the moment you hear something new.”

“You got it.” She acknowledged, switching it back to a private feed and hooking the headset over her ear.

“Chin, have you been able to pull any surveillance?”

“The pharmacy did have a camera covering that parking lot, I’m running through the footage now to see if it caught the event.” Steve moved over to stand beside him and watch the fast-forward footage on the screen.

“There!” Steve said, seeing Tony’s car turn into the lot. Chin slowed it down to real time, having spotted the same thing. The rest of the teams came to stand around them and watch as Tony got out of his car and hurried into the store.”

“Do we have the footage from inside the store too?”

“Yeah, we do. Give me one second.” He said, switching the footage and jumping to the time stamp that Tony had entered the store at. They watched as the man in question made his way briskly through the store and to the pick-up counter. He seemed to make small talk with the cashier as she rang him up, and then he turned and headed immediately back to the exit.

The footage was switched back to the camera outside and they watched as Tony arrived back at his car and started unlocking his door. At the same time, a large blond man appeared on the edge of the screen, moving slowly but directly towards Tony. The angle was that they could only see the back of the suspects head.

Steve found his arms crossing and jaw clenching as he watched. Tony paused in his unlocking and started fumbling in his pocket, switching to remove the keys with his left hand. They watched as he opened the door and dropped the bag inside, pulling his phone free and looking down at the screen. He didn’t answer it and a couple of seconds passed, with the man getting closer and closer behind him.

Tony finally seemed to realize someone was approaching him, and started to turn around. Before he could, the man punched him directly on the back of his head. Tony fell forward, fingers scrabbling to find purchase against his car to stop his decent to the ground. It looked like he was trying to push himself back up when the suspect pulled a syringe from his pocket and jabbed Tony in the back of the neck.

A familiar white SUV pulled into the parking lot, and Steve watched helplessly as Tony lost the struggle with consciousness and fell heavily to the ground. The blond opened the back and hefted Tony’s substantial form up into the back. The windows were tinted enough that his body was not visible through them. The blond ducked down to gather Tony’s dropped phone and keys, tossed them onto the seat, closed the door, and then followed the limp body into the back of the car. Amazingly, he managed to do so without turning towards the camera once.

“He knows where the camera is.” Tony’s agent Graham said, watching intently. Steve nodded silently in agreement.

“The license plates been changed.” Chin pointed out.

“If they know where the camera is, they’ll know we’ve seen this one and change it again.” Kono added.

They watched the SUV, now clearly confirmed as 2010 Lincoln Navigator, turned onto the street and pulled away.

“See if there’s any other cameras in the area that we can use to track where they went. It might be a long shot, but put a BOLO out for the car anyway. Just make note that the license might have been changed, and to investigate any cars matching the description.” Steve commanded gruffly. He pulled out his phone and dialed. “Danny, we have footage of the abduction. Have the techs dust Tony’s cell, keys and the strip of door along the window for prints. Then get back here and bring his phone. I want to know who this ‘Brad Pitt’ is that just happened to call at the right moment to distract him from his abductor.”

“Got it.” Danny agreed, and then hung up.

“He never saw it coming.” Steve murmured, dropping his hand down from his ear. “Why was he at a pharmacy anyway? He said he was only making one stop and would be back. Why would he lie about that?”

Graham and Palowunu traded glances, and Steve narrowed in on them. “Uh, well.” Graham began. “The boss has been sick for a few days. He hasn’t actually said anything about it, but we’ve all heard him coughing at one time or other. It sounds pretty bad.”

“When he left earlier, we think he finally went to the doctor, but we’re not sure.” Johnson spoke up. “He doesn’t talk about himself much.” She finished with a small shrug.

Steve shook his head with a frown, but didn’t respond verbally. That still didn’t make sense. If Tony needed to go to the doctor, why wouldn’t he have just told him that? Why the secretiveness?  He’d expect him to keep it from his team of course, they hadn’t been working together long, and Tony was a guarded man at best. But him? Tony’d been deliberately secretive earlier in the day. He’d said ‘I have somewhere I need to be,’ without offering any explanation or justification despite knowing of Steve’s growing ire with him at that moment.  

Nothing was making sense and Steve found himself growing more and more agitated.

“Steve, something’s happening.” Kono spoke suddenly, changing her feed back to speaker.

The sound of a heavy steel door opening filled the room. A thud followed immediately by a hitch in the rough breathing and then strained coughing. “Vremya prosypat'sya.” A gravelly voice spoke.

“Is that Russian?” Kono asked, trying to pull up translating software as quickly as she could.

“He said ‘It’s time to wake up.’” Johnson said.

“You speak Russian?” Steve asked the woman.

She nodded in affirmation. “Fluently, Sir.”

Steve nodded at her to continue.

“Sorry man,” Tony’s strained voice came once he had the coughing under control. “I don’t speak Russian.”

“Eto ne imeyet znacheniya. Vy skoro poymete.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll understand soon enough.” Johnson translated.

The sound of scuffling and grunting could be heard. The voice growled again, “Luchshe vsego uspokoit'sya, mal'chik, ili ty ne perezhivesh' pervogo matcha.”

“You’d best find your feet, boy, or you won’t survive the first fight.”

 

~*~ Tony’s POV ~*~

Tony woke to a sharp pain starbursting in his chest. He gasped, the movement triggering his chest to convulse in a bit of breathless coughing. A gravely voice began speaking, though he didn’t understand the words.

He worked through his focused breathing to try and bring himself under control and lose the panicked edge that waking up unable to breath had given him. “Sorry man, I don’t speak Russian.” He choked out once able. The man growled out something else in reply, and Tony tried to ignore the shiver that ran up his spine at the malicious tone of voice the huge blonde Russian used.

The man swooped down suddenly and grabbed a hold of him, forcing him to his feet despite the numbness still infusing his limbs. Tony tried to find his balance and pull away at the same time, only to end up back on the cold stone floor. His hands were tied in rough rope behind his back, he realized. The voice growled at him again, and Tony shot a mutinous look at the man in response, willing his legs to start working again.

The man grabbed him again, fisting the back of his shirt in his meaty hands and holding Tony in place until he was able to find his balance. As soon as he was more or less on his feet, the man began pushing him out of the small metal room he’d been locked in before.

Tony looked around as they entered a long hallway, rows of heavy steel doors moving uniformly down the length of it. Despite himself, a look of shock overtook his features. “Do you, are there people in all of those?” He asked in horror.

The man let out a sinister sounding laugh, but otherwise didn’t respond to him. Tony tried to keep track as the man drug him down one hallway and then the next, the huge amount of turns and double backs making him dizzy and nauseous.

A nagging sensation kept trying to grab his attention over the rough drag of his unsteady gait. He focused on it finally, realizing it was the tug of his chest hair under the tape being tugged on by the Russian’s forceful hold. A surge or adrenaline strengthened him, and he had to stop himself from rambling then and there in an attempt to communicate with someone on the other end. That wire might just be his saving grace, but he couldn’t give away that it was there too quickly or he’d be screwed.  

He could hear the noise before they arrived, the sound of hundreds of people, jeering and stomping their feet. Tony had an unpleasant idea of where they were headed, and he tried even harder to shake off the fog from the sedative.

They came to a stop just before two huge wooden doors secured with a heavy metal latch. As they stood there, the sound of the crowd began to quiet until they could hear the sound of someone speaking. The man who was speaking had an accent as well, though he didn’t think it was Russian. It almost sounded African.

“ **Ladies and Gentlemen**!” The man shouted above the lingering rumble. “ **As many of you know, this is our last week on this beautiful island!** ” He announced, a chorus of cheers and boos rising up in response. “ **You’ve all been a wonderful audience, and to thank you, we’ve brought you something extra special!** ”

“ **Please, give a warm welcome, to tonight’s contestant- ‘The Agent!!’ He’s not one of our normal challengers, and he’s never fought professionally, but with more than a dozen years in law enforcement under his belt, and a few other golden nuggets that’ll come out later, we’re expecting great things from him!** ”

“ **Here’s how it’s gonna go! We’re gonna change things up a bit for this very special bonus. Instead of our normal tournament style lineup, The Agent is going to be the main attraction through the night! We’ll start by pairing him up with our current hand-to-hand champion, Damion! Should he survive his first lineup, he’ll face ‘The Machete’ in a game of knifes. And if he survives that? Well, then he’ll face Kiara! And then if, by some miracle, he survives her? He’ll go on to compete in our Grand Finale this Friday Night!! And remember folks- the winner of the Grand Finale win’s their freedom from the Club!** ”

While the man was speaking, the doors began to open. The Russian holding him leant close to his ear, and stated in a deadly, wrathful tone, “The man you shot is my brother. I’m very much looking forward to watching this.” He spoke in heavily accented English, and then shoved Tony forward into the blinding brightness of the room in front of him.

Tony stumbled and fell, unable to catch himself as his hands were still tied. He used his shoulder to push himself up to his knees, squinting up into the brightness to try and see what was happening. The spots began to clear slowly, and he realized he was in a room surrounded by smooth walls that must have risen ten feet, with a further ten feet covered in some kind of clear glass. At the top of the wall were arena like seats, filled to the brim with screaming people.

The room itself formed a circle, with two identical wooden doors built seamlessly into the sides. It looked to be about fifty feet in diameter, and covered in sand. That would be tiring, Tony noted immediately. The second door began opening, and Tony forced his body to quickly roll onto it’s back, so that he could force his bound arms around his legs and back in front of him. It was much easier to push himself to his knees the second time, and then to his feet.

They tingled like crazy, but bore his weight. He fumbled with his belt buckle, removing the hidden knife discreetly in the palm of his hand. Using his thumb to hold it, be began sawing at the rope in a way that was mostly hidden from sight.

He held himself bowed over, so that the knot of rope was mostly hidden in the curve of his stomach around it. As soon as he felt a piece of rope give way, he tucked the knife back into its holder, hoping it might somehow go unnoticed. He began twisting his arms and wrists, forcing the rope to loosen at the expensive of his top layer of flesh. He ignored the stinging as he forced first one wrist and then the other free of their confines.

The ball of rope dropped to the ground as the newcomer entered the room. He was about the same size as Tony, but much more muscular. “ **And he’s already escaped his confines! How did he do that?! I’m telling you, folks, we’re in for a treat tonight!** ” The announcer continued to commentate, as Tony eyed up his opponent.

 

~*~ Back at Five-O Headquarters ~*~

The frozen super that engulfed everyone ended when the announcer laid out the plans for the night. They’d all immediately gone back to work, still listening to the nightmare occurring somewhere else on the island. “Kono, is there any way to trace the wire back to where it’s receiving?” Steve demanded shortly.

“No, not with this one. It’s just a one-way receiver boss, we didn’t need anything more than that.” Kono responded, frowning.

Danny arrived then, hurrying into the room. “We’ve got a match on the fingerprint.” He announced, joining them at the table. “What’s going on here?” He asked, stopping in surprise when he started hearing what was playing in the room.

“They’re making Tony fight.” Steve said stoically. “What have you got?” When Danny didn’t answer immediately, eye’s focused on the device playing the sound, Steve barked his name.

Danny shook off his stupor, and continued his initial announcement. “We got a positive ID on the fingerprint taken off the car. It belongs to Nicholi Portnoy, though he goes by Nicholas Taylor while in America. His brother is Марк Portnoy, who we already know goes by Mark Taylor. They’re from Russia, Moscow to be exact, and they’re both wanted internationally for human trafficking, and other crimes against humanity, including torture and enslavement.”

“Neither of them are in the country legally, and both were last identified in Kazakhstan back in November. There have been a lot of people after these guys, and they haven’t been caught yet.” Danny finished, also handing Steve Tony’s phone.

“We caught one of them.” Steve denied, voice icy. “And I don’t care what the hospital said, we’re talking to him tonight.” He turned on the screen of the phone and showed it to Kono. “Run this number, I want to know where it came from and who it was.” She nodded silently and began to do so.

The phone had two new voicemails, and Steve had only left one. He selected the other one, putting the phone on speaker and laying it on the computer table. Steve began frowning quickly though, contents of the message not what he would have been expecting.

“Tony, hey, it’s Brad. Look man, you know that I get a courtesy copy of your records, as your referring provider, right? What are you doing Tony? Look man, I know this is frustrating, and I know you’re tired of having to deal with it, but you can’t ignore the doctors. We’ve been over this before, being non-compliant can get you killed. You have to take this stuff seriously. I know you don’t like dealing with new doctors, but I can’t be your primary in Hawaii. Dr. Pauahi is one of the best Pulmonologists in the world, alright? You need to listen to him. I scheduled your follow up appointment for you, the same day and time as your last one so hopefully it’ll work for you. Tuesday at 2:00. I know how stubborn you are, and I know you’ll never follow all of our recommendations, but you can find a compromise you’re both comfortable with, like we did when we first started working together, right? Give him a chance, go to your follow up. I’ll know if you don’t. Talk to you soon.” The phone clicked, and Steve reached out and exited the voice mail before the message he’d left could begin playing.

Tony’s own team members were looking at the screen uncomfortably, obviously feeling privy to something they had no right to. Danny, Kono and Chin were watching Steve for his reaction, and he was careful to keep his face blank. After a second, he turned to Kono for her findings. She cleared her throat and began reading. “Commander Brad Pitt began his career serving in the Navy, and then went on to be an infection disease specialist who operates out of Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, boss.” Kono offered immediately.

“So, the call had nothing to do with the abduction?”

“No.” Kono stated. “But when I run the search for him against Tony, everything is above my clearance level, except that he’s listed as Tony’s Primary Care Physician.”

“Okay.” Steve said, trying to let go of the irrelevant curiosity grasping him in favor of the much more important issues at hand. What he was still hearing over the live feed wasn’t helping his state of mind any, and he was getting more and more desperate for something to break. He closed his eyes, blocking out the pained grunts he could hear and wracking his brain. “Ben-Gidon.” He announced. “He told Tony he knows where the fighters are being held.”

“Yeah, but he’s not going to be here until morning. We have no idea where to find him until then.” Danny argued.

“True, but Tony called him a friend. Maybe he has his number.” He said, immediately going into Tony’s substantial list of contacts. He looked under ‘B’ first, and then for ‘Malachi.’ There wasn’t either name, but there was a listing under ‘Mal.’ Steve remembered Tony calling the man that once and clicked on the number to open it. “The country code for Israel is 972. This has to be him.” He said softly out loud, clicking ‘call’ without further hesitation and hitting speaker phone, gesturing Kono to turn down the volume of the feed.

Danny jumped forward, gesturing for the phone like he might take it away. “Are you crazy?” He hissed. “We know nothing about this guy!”

“Tony trusts him.” Steve stated stubbornly, listening to the phone click. Silence filled the air, but Steve was sure someone was on the other end. “Agent Ben-Gidon?” He asked to the silence. “My name is Commander Steve McGarrett. We have a mutual friend.”

The voice from earlier spoke then. “Commander McGarrett. I hear we will be working together soon.” He commented, seemingly unfazed by the unexpected late night call.

“I’m hoping we can move that up.” Steve said, cutting immediately to the point. “Tony never made it back after meeting you earlier this evening. We have surveillance that shows him being abducted. I understand you know where this ring operates from?”

“I do. But that won’t help you tonight.”

“Why is that?” He asked, forcing his voice to remain calm.

“Because it is heavily fortified and nearly impossible to infiltrate by force. It would result in mass causalities on both sides. Tonight was not supposed to be a fight, so I have nothing set up to get inside.”

“Then how were you planning to extract your agent?” Danny spoke up, voice harsh as Steve’s jaw clenched tighter still.

“Ahh, you must be the good Detective Williams.” Malachi stated. Silence followed his statement, and he sounded amused when he spoke again. “Yes, Detective, I know who you are. I don’t generally make a habit of agreeing to work with people I do not know. To answer your question, I have a plan in place for this Friday. The ring will be showing its Grand Finale, and they are expecting a thousand people to turn out. It is easier to get inside then.”

“A thousand?” Chin said. “You’re saying a thousand people are going to show up to watch this.”

“That is what I said.” He acknowledged.

“We can’t wait until Friday.” Steve spoke up again, voice raised slightly. “I don’t think Tony’ll make it that long.”

“He’ll have to.” Malachi responded, sounding almost bored. “There’s nothing we can do to move up the plans. If we try, everything will fall apart. I must go now. I will be there in the morning, as agreed.” He hung up without another word, to the shock of the room still listening.

“Tony considers that guy a friend?” Danny said with disgust. “What a joke.”

Steve shook his head. “Kono, patch the feed into my com. We’re going to talk to our suspect.” He ordered, gesturing for Danny to follow him out.

 

~*~ Tony POV ~*~

Tony ignored the blood pooling in the gashes around his wrists, and the irritation of sand sticking to the new wounds. The man coming towards him had thick muscles and intricate tattoo’s decorating his arms and chest. His head was shaved smooth, and his eyes were dark and angry.

He began circling Tony in the sand, Tony moving in tandem to stay facing him. “Damion, right?” Tony tried, voice forcibly hopeful. The man didn’t respond, but faked a jab towards him. “Look, Damion, I don’t want to fight you, alright?” The man lunged at him again, and Tony had to dodge the blow. “Seriously, man, let’s talk about this.” He tried again, knowing it was fruitless, but unable to bite his tongue. When Damion lunged again, Tony’s legs failed to hold up to his attempted lunge and he found himself crashing down into the sand once again.   

He rolled quickly to his back to avoid the fist colliding with where his head had been previously. He used the other man’s pause in momentum to sweep his legs out from under him with a twist of his torso. He threw his body on top of the other mans, forcing him into a hold. The roar of the crowd was deafening when Damion managed to get his knee under himself and toss Tony over his shoulder and onto his back. Tony lost his breath, a cough struggling to break free, but no breath in his body to expel it. After what felt like eons, his sternum relaxed and air flowed rapidly into his lungs. He rolled to the side just in time, and then rolled again to his feet.  

The two men squared off once more, Damion stony and focused, Tony pained and winded.

The pain helped him focus however, and he felt more energized, fog lifting slightly from his head. He lowered himself into a better stance, and took note of what the other man’s feet were doing. He swallowed hard when he did it, forcing down the cough that still wanted to escape. He couldn’t afford the distraction just then, and he’d be damned if he allowed his ruined lungs to be the reason he lost his life.

This time it was Tony that lunged, needed something else to focus on and tired of waiting for it to come to him. He attacked quickly and furiously, forcing Damion to retreat several paces. And then suddenly Damion turned the tables, spinning them around so that it was Tony whose back was literally to the wall.

Tony crouched lower, body swaying back and forth as he waited. Damion moved in closer, nearly pinning him to the wall with his body. His patience paid off, and when the time was just right, he spun his trap. He lunged, but not to try and break free as Damion was expecting. No, instead, he grabbed the back of Damion’s neck and used the man’s forward momentum, combined with his own strength, to smash his face into the cement wall.

The man staggered backwards, blood bubbling to the surface from the split flesh of his forehead and his broken nose. “Sorry, man.” Tony mumbled quietly and the crowd grew even louder, if it were at all possible. “Told you I didn’t want to fight.” He’d fallen to his back, losing consciousness as his blood began to form a gruesome circle around his head in the sand.

The door Damion had come through opened again, and a line of guards in black half-masks ran into the room, all pointing AK-47s at him. As Tony was already back against the furthest wall, he simply put his hands up and held still as two of the men separated and grabbed Damion by the legs. The moved back behind the line, dragging his former opponent back through the door.

 A third man broke free and picked up the rope that had been around his wrists. He held it up and examined it closely. “ **Cut**!” He shouted once, and the crowd broke into another round of jeers. The announcer spoke up and the crowd quieted again slowly. “ **It seems The Agent already has a knife on him!** ” He shouted. “ **So I suppose he won’t be in need of one of ours for this next match?** ” Shouting met his suggestion and he chuckled lowly into the mic. “ **Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome Machete!** ”

The group of armed men backed uniformly out of the arena, only to be replaced by a slender man wielding a serrated bowie knife as long as his forearm. “ **I suggest you arm yourself, Agent.** ” The announcer taunted, to the crowds amusement.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Tony whispered, keeping his hands posed to block at chest height. He didn’t want to reveal where his knife was, not yet. The man moved closer, nearly dancing across the sand. He looked like he enjoyed what was happening, and Tony was willing to bet he was there by choice.

He moved closer slowly, putting on more of a show than Damion had. He flourished his knife so that it’s blade caught the light from above and reflected into a teasing, glowing circle that landed first on Tony’s face, and then moved slowly down his jaw line, across his neck and then down to rest over his heart.

Tony tried to ignore his confident, bloodthirsty smirk, and studied the fluid movements of his body, looking for cues into his actions. When he saw the mans left leg take half a step forward, he was prepared for the lunge that followed. He underestimated the other man’s speed, however, and ended up with a line of fire scored across the meat of his right bicep. The pain didn’t ebb, but continued to grow in severity until it felt like a line of acid burning across his flesh.

“Do you feel that?” The man taunted, reaching his tongue out like he was going to lick the blood from the edge of his blade. “I made it myself. It’s a derivative of the Box Jellyfish venom. All of the pain, none of the danger.”

Tony grit his teeth against the agonizing sear, and forced himself to dodge with the blade darted towards him once again. ‘None of the danger.’ He told himself mentally, despite his arm feeling like it was going to sever and fall off. ‘That means it’s just pain, and pain doesn’t matter. It’s just mental. Pain, pain is mental, it can be pushed past.’ He kept up a running commentary in his head, though his teeth were clenched too tightly together for any of it to be spoken aloud.  

The room faded away and his focus was held solely by his opponent. Any reluctance to hurt this man that he’d felt before had faded away under his sadistic pleasure at causing pain to others. Tony wondered how many others he’d sliced up with knifes dipped in his little concoction, how many might still be in agony over a slice given days or even weeks before.

The Box Jellyfish were native to Hawaii, and were common a week after the full moon. Anyone who’d spent any significant amount of time on the island would be aware of them, and of the pain they were capable of causing. Steve, unsurprisingly, had been the one to first teach him about them, years previously.

The reminder of Steve, that the man might be listening in to what was happening, gave him a renewed surge of stubbornness to power through and meet forward thrust by blocking and sweeping aside his wrist. The man was able to keep his footing, and quickly moved in for another strike. Tony dodged that one completely, and then the next and the next. On the fourth strike Tony faked like he was going to repeat the same maneuver, but instead of pivoting away to the left, he bounced off of his left foot and lunged right, grabbing his wrist under the knife and forcing his arm around and behind his back.

The man twisted his wrist with a growl, and Tony felt another line of fire sear up the underside of his left arm. He was able to keep his grip, despite the pain, and twisted the mans arm further and further until the blade fell limply from his fingers and into the sand below.

Tony shoved him away with all his strength, using the space to swoop down and pick up the knife for his own. The other man looked furious when he swung back around and saw his prized blade in the hand of one he perceived as a slave. He fell on Tony with a flurry of movement’s, trying to overwhelm him with his sheer speed and presence.

Tony had already worked out his technique though, and the only thing it did was slow him down for a few extra seconds. He was still able to catch the man as he moved in for a low blow and then tried to spin just as quickly away. He caught his open hand by the wrist in his left hand and pinned it against the wood of the door Tony had been shoved through. He seemed shocked by the sudden halt of his motions, and could only look at Tony with wide eyes before Tony used his other hand to drive the blade through the meaty center of his palm to embed in the thick wood beneath it.

The man moaned in response, reaching with his free hand to grasp at the handle of the blade. Despite his efforts, he was unable to pull it free, and his moan soon turned to a keen and the venom continued to make direct contact with the flesh surrounding it. After a minute of struggling and increasing sounds of pain, the troop of armed and masked men entered once again.

Tony stepped back against the wall, showing his hands once again and holding his position while they tore the blade free and half carried, half drug the whimpering man from the arena. As he was left temporarily alone in the arena once more, Tony allowed himself to slump forward and the cough break free of its fleshy prison. He could feel sweat dotting across his flesh and felt feverish and dizzy.

“ **Well, well, well, ladies and gentlemen. Did any of you think that our new Agent would make it this far? I know I sure didn’t. If you’ve lost your bets already, we strongly encourage you to place a new one on this final match. Who will walk away the victor? The Agent? Or the majestic and ferocious Kiara! We’ll allow a five-minute window for you to place your bids!** ” The commentator announced with glee and the crowd went crazy.  

Tony was grateful for the small break, despite the dread he felt and the nausea filling his gut from the unabating pain throbbing from both arms. He slumped back against the wall, sliding down to sit on the ground despite his best efforts. Once there, he decided to take advantage of his position and allowed his body to relax and rest briefly. He wasn’t sure who Kiara was, but he didn’t think she could be worse than a poisoned blade wheeling sociopath with a blood fetish. Maybe. Hopefully. He decided not to think about it until he had to, and leant his head back against the cooler stone of the wall.

He remained in the same position until the announcer began counting down from thirty. The roar of a large, angry cat could be heard through the walls, and the crowd began to cheer and chant. Tony felt himself pale, and pushed himself quickly back to his feet, black dots spotting his vision for a long moment.

Unknown to him, about twenty miles south of his location, Steve heard the hiss of the cat over his head set and froze mid step as he moved through the hospital on the way to question their suspect.

Tony remembered Palowunu mentioning that Taylor had been involved in black market ivory trade, and he wondered then if another of his charges might include exotic animal trade as the doors opened a final time and a beautiful Bengal Tiger trotted lazily into the arena, locking electric yellow eyes on him immediately.

It couldn’t have been full grown, at least he didn’t think so. He was pretty sure tigers got bigger than that, he contemplated, tilting his head to the side. “Nice kitty?” He tried, holding a hand out hopefully, because there was no way this was his life, and why the hell not try it. It stepped towards him, crouching and letting out a rumbling growl that seemed to go on for ages and left a shiver thrumming through his spine and down to the tips of his fingers and toes.

She lunged towards him suddenly, leaping off her feet and hurling herself through the air towards him. Tony threw himself to the side, but was already convinced he was a dead man. Pain seared down his right shoulder blade, and he knew he hadn’t missed her completely. For a moment, he felt sheer, blinding panic and hopelessness. How could he possibly survive this? He forced himself to turn and face her, warring between whether it would be better to try and make himself look bigger, or drop and play dead.

But tigers were called man eaters. He remembered that from the horrendous film Maneater that had come out in ’07 and that he’d made the mistake of watching. So playing dead was probably out, because the tiger might just decide he was ready to eat. Especially if it was hungry, which it’s thin frame made Tony think it probably was.

It started to trot towards him again and, feeling desperate, he jumped towards it, flapping his arms in the air and letting out a shout that was a combination of terror, pain and sheer rage at the circumstance. The tiger jerked its head back and veered off to circle around again, sizing him up from the small distance away.

Tony started talking to himself quietly, unable to be heard over the rumble of the crowd above him. “There’s no way this is happening.” He told himself, moving to keep the animal in his direct line of sight. “You’re dreaming, or you already died and this is some deranged Valhalla. Because this isn’t Rome, and people don’t get thrown into arenas with fucking tigers.” He mumbled angrily. “No, just you, and your fucking DiNozzo luck.” The tiger came towards him again, and they went through the same dance. “Bad kitty. You’re a very bad kitty. Down kitty.” He scolded it, mind blank and body acting on instinct.

It batted at him with a dinner plate sized paw, but didn’t make contact and seemed to be testing him more than anything. It growled at him again, dipping its head down to lick at the top of its paw, eyes never leaving his face. If only he had something to block with, or trap it with, he though desperately, eyes scanning the empty pit helplessly.

The guards had removed the bowie knife when they’d removed the last challenger, and Tony was all that stood inside the arena. All’s he had on him were his shoes, pants, belt, and button up shirt. He had his belt! He remembered, reaching down to open the buckle and pull the whole thing free of his belt loops.

The small triangular blade he looped over his middle finger and held it so that the blade pointed out over the palm of his hand. The belt he held dangling from the other, thankful for the sturdy craftsmanship of the leather. When the tiger batted at him again, he slapped his hand out and stabbed the pad of her paw with the blade.

She let out a roaring hiss, drawing back with a limp and a growl. She seemed to swell in size. She turned away from him to begin pacing once again, but he lunged onto her broad back before she could move too far away, looping the strong leather around her huge neck and pulling tight.

She snarled and snapped, thrashing around and throwing herself into the concrete walls surrounding them. Tony knew if he let go he’d be dead and so he forced his knees to squeeze around her shoulder blades even more tightly, and clenched his fingers around the leather until they went numb and lost their feeling.

Slowly, ever so slowly, her struggles waned. Eventually, her legs gave out and she fell heavily down onto her chest. Still Tony held the belt, not wanting to kill her but unable to let go of the one thing saving his life just yet. His entire body ached, both arms burning like they were still sitting in a pool of acid and his back feeling like it’d been, well, shredded by a two-hundred pound Bengal Tiger.

As he felt her muscular body fall limp beneath him, he himself slumped over, weak from the exertion and blood loss. He could hear the commentator saying something, could hear the crowd roaring, but his vision went dark and he lost his all awareness of the situation.

_~*~ TBC ~*~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be one more chapter of this, and then I will probably take a break from this series.. Well, maybe. I hope it meets your expectations, please let me know what you think, and thank you to those of you who have given me your feedback already. This chapter is not beta'd, and I will re-read through it tomorrow to try and find any errors.


	6. La: Mahele Elua (Taken: Part Two)

One of the first missions Steve had been given as a SEAL put him in city in China called Tanbian, just North of the boarder of North Korea. He’d stumbled across a Bengal Tiger, chained down on the sidewalk outside a shop like some macabre mascot. It looked like it had been there for a long time, but it hadn’t lost its fight. Even with a thick leather strap holding its mouth shut, it had made the most horrendous rumbling noise from deep in its chest. At the time, it had reminded him of his dad’s beat up old lawnmower when he’d first get it to turn over and rumble to life.

The day before they’d moved South, that tiger had broken through the rusted old chains holding it in place and managed to maul a dozen people before being subdued. When he heard that same noise come over his com, he felt his blood freeze in his veins and thought he might be sick. He felt someone, Danny, take his arm and lead him over to the side of the hall, but couldn’t focus on anything but the sound of Tony’s rapid breaths and the jeers of what sounded like a couple of hundred people baying for his blood.

Part of him wanted to reach up and rip the small plastic device from his ear so he didn’t have to listen to what he was sure was going to happen. The larger part of him couldn’t bear to leave Tony alone to his fate, even if he didn’t know Steve was with him. When he heard Tony call out to it, it hit him that it was really happening, that Tony was really facing down one of nature’s most fearsome predators, and for some psycho’s _sport_. He found himself sliding down the wall until he was crouched on his tiptoes with the curve of his back pressed against it and his hands twisted together against his mouth, elbows propped on his knees. His eyes stared down at a spot of _something_ on the tile floor and he literally stopped breathing.

He remained in that position through all of the stomach churning noises that occurred. It felt like it took hours, but he knew it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. The worst part was, he couldn’t tell for sure what was happening. Once Tony stopped talking, all’s he could hear were screams cut through occasionally by heavy thuds and grunts of pain and determination. When the motion related noises stopped, Steve didn’t know what to think. The crowd was louder than ever, and it was all he could hear. The commentator was speaking, but he couldn’t make out what he was saying.

When Steve was finally able to make it out, the relieved gulp of air he took gave him an oxygen rush to powerful he thought he might actually pass out then and there. “ **AND THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS!** ” The man was shouting louder than ever. “ **WE’LL BE SEEING THE AGENT BACK THIS FRIDAY NIGHT! YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS THIS ONE!** ” His eyes clenched in incredulity and disbelief. He didn’t know how the other man had managed to not only survive, but subdue the beast long enough to be declared the winner. Still, he knew the struggle couldn’t have be easy, especially when the sound of the guards returning came, and with it, the sound of Tony’s limp body being dragged against first sand or maybe dirt, and then against stone.

It wasn’t until the grating noise stopped and the sound of a heavy metal door shutting blocked out the ambient noises enough for Tony’s raspy, uneven breath to be heard once again. Even then, Steve remained in his crouch for several more seconds, getting control of the paralyzing fear that had gripped his chest and mentally preparing himself to press on. Only then did he push himself back to his feet and step away from the support of the wall.

Danny had taken up a protective stance in front of him while he’d been lost in the sounds. He was standing next to where his knee had been, facing away from him with his arms crossed and a fierce scowl for anyone who thought it was a good idea to look their way. Steve felt a hum of gratitude fill him, thankful once again that the ornery, sarcastic and angry man had stumbled into his life. Despite his foul mood and temper, the short blond detective had become one of the truest friends he’d ever had, and probably would ever have. “Mahalo.” He said softly, voice like gravel, once he was able to speak again.

Danny nodded silently, but didn’t respond verbally. He’d heard the same play-by-play in his own ear, and his face had taken on the cold stony expression it got only when he was truly pissed. Steve felt his anger and grabbed ahold of it, using it to build his own rage until it outweighed the lingering sense of hopelessness.  

He’d felt like this the day his dad had died, from the moment he knew Hess was going to kill his father and that there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it. Then it had been over fairly quickly. This time though, the moment wasn’t ending. It was just stretching on and on, and he didn’t know how he was supposed to stand it for much longer.

So he didn’t. He locked down on the fear and the hopelessness and turned that hollow ache into a furiously simmering rage. As soon as they arrived at their suspects room, Steve knew something was wrong. There was only one officer stationed at the door, where there should have been two, and it wasn’t someone Steve recognized. Granted, he couldn’t claim to know them all by name, but he’d at least recognize them.

At quick glance at Danny said he’d noticed the same thing. “Evening.” The shorter man greeted the unknown police officer. “Everything going okay here?”

“Of course.” The man responded with an odd smile. “The patients’ asleep. Doctors say he won’t be awake until morning.”

“Really.” Danny said, though not as a question. “That why your backup’s missing?” He questioned directly, not willing to beat around the bush just then. It was a fair question, they’d left strict instructions to have two guards on the door at all times, and there was no reason for it to not have been done.

The man smiled blandly at them. “He stepped out for a smoke. We figured there was no harm, seeing as our prisoner is asleep.”

“There’s definitely harm in it.” Danny said, scowling at him. “What’s your badge number? And who’s here with you?” He demanded.

The man smiled again, looking like he had a secret and he was enjoying keeping it to himself. It was obvious he knew he was caught out on whatever ploy he was attempting, because he stopped trying to look innocent and let the creep factor ratchet up in his twisted grin. Before they realized he was moving, his hand had found his gun and ripped it from its holster. Steve drew his own gun half a second later, but the man wasn’t aiming at them. Before they could react, he’d drawn it against the underside of his own chin and pulled the trigger.

“No!” Steve shouted, lowering his own gun and jumping forward fruitlessly to try and stop him. It didn’t matter, as bits of blood and brains splattered and began dripping from the once sterile white wall and ceiling behind him.

“What the hell was that?!” Danny demanded, taking a half-step back.

“Damn it!” Steve cursed, ducking down and already knowing his fingertips weren’t going to find a pulse. He kept his gun in his hand when he moved to the door and opened it consciously. He peered around the edge and then stepped fully inside a second later. “No.” He stated in denial, moving further in and confirming that the room was, in fact, empty. “There’s no one here!” He exclaimed, spinning around and looking at his partner, who still stood in the hall and had his phone to his ear. “There’s no one here, Danny!” He said again, helplessness once again trying to rise to the surface. “Where did he go?”

Danny hung up and strode down the hall to the nurses station. “Hey!” He barked, getting the woman’s attention immediately. “Where’s the prisoner that was in room 409?”

“He’s in his room?” She stated hesitantly, and it came out more like a question.

“No, he’s not in his room. If he was in his room, I wouldn’t have to ask you where he is, would I?” He snapped. “When was the last time you saw him?”

She flinched back slightly at his tone and he almost felt sorry for it. “Well, I haven’t actually seen him. I just came on shift at nine, and I haven’t rounded on him yet.”

Steve glanced down at his watch. It wasn’t even ten o’clock, but it felt like it should have been so much later. So much had already happened it felt like it had been days since they’d found Tony missing.

“Okay, well you give each other some type of report, right?” Danny demanded. “What did the last nurse say?”

“Uh, she said she gave him his pain medicine at six, but that the officer guarding the room told her she couldn’t do hourly rounding on him because of the circumstances of, uhm, him being here. She just checked in the with officer to see if the patient needed anything.”

“Wait, at six? That can’t be right, we were told he was just going into surgery at 5:45.”

“Surgery? I’m sorry, but the patient in room 409 didn’t have surgery.”

“Yes he did.” Danny said stubbornly. “Mark Taylor, ‘bout this tall, blond hair? Bullet in his ass? He had surgery to have it removed.” His voice was like a whip.

She shook her head. “Mark Taylor did not have surgery.” She stated, more firmly. “When a bullet is embedded in soft tissue, especially as deeply as this one was, removing it can do more damage than leaving it in place. They wouldn’t operate unless it was causing complications.

Steve and Danny traded looks. “So what you’re saying is that no one has actually seen the prisoner in almost four hours.” Danny deadpanned, frowning at her.

“The guard-“ She began to defend, but Danny cut her off.

“The guard is dead, didn’t you hear the gunshot? What is wrong with you.”

She paled. “I thought someone dropped an oxygen tank again.” She stuttered.

“Danny.” Steve said, and the man quieted. “Are there any cameras here?” Steve continued, looking back at the nurse.

“No, I’m sorry. This is considered a patient care area, there aren’t any camera’s in here.”

Steve turned away in disgust, moving back towards the room with long strides, pulling his phone out and dialing Kono as he went.

 

~*~ Tony’s POV ~*~

Tony came awake slowly, feeling uncomfortable, but exhausted enough to try and cling to sleep despite it. When he did become conscious of his body, he couldn’t help but let out a tiny whimper. He’d been tossed down roughly on his front, and he’d stiffened up in the position he’d fallen in.

He stretched his legs out first, those being the least sore out of his body and feeling almost normal. He moved his left arm first, the pain from the knife still burning as badly as it had when he’d first been cut. He swallowed harshly and moved on. The right arm was harder, and he could feel that his skin from the top of his right shoulder, and all the way down to the start of the dip to his lower back, had been sliced open by the vicious claws, and then had scabbed over in his slumber.

When the scabs started pulling, he decided he should probably just try and keep that arm still, to lessen the chance of infection as much as possible. Though, with the conditions so far, he thought it might be a longshot anyway. He wondered vaguely if they’d give him any time of medical care, or if they’d just let nature take its course.

He rearranged his tired body to rest on his left shoulder, arm held awkwardly in front of him to avoid pressing on the equally scabbed over slash that ran from the crook of his elbow to half way up to his armpit. He kept his right arm hunched against his chest.

His breath felt rattly in his chest, and the air felt cool against his sweaty flesh. He cleared his throat, fighting down the need to cough that followed, knowing it would open up the gashes for sure. As hazy thoughts started to drift back into his mind, he started to focus beyond the haze of discomfort to what was actually happening.

He remembered the wire he still wore, could feel it still tugging against his chest hair even through all the commotion. The thought brought a weak smile to his lips and he choked out a small, one-note laugh. He cleared his throat once again, and then began to talk. “I don’t know if anyone is listening. Or if this thing is still working.” He paused, small cough rising despite his best efforts. His voice was weaker than he intended, and he tried to make it sound stronger.

“I’m underground. I can tell cause the air feels colder and damper, and everything smells like dirt. Plus, they’re no windows that I’ve seen, just lights.” He shifted again, thinking about it as his mind wandered more than he realized it was. “Though, I guess that might just be, cause, well, you know, me being a real life gladiator and all.” He joked, trying to make light of the situation.

“SITREP.” He prompted himself aloud, his voice sounding far away. He frowned at it, answering himself anyway. “Status: Alive.” He felt a flash of amusement at himself. “One point for DiNozzo. Condition?” He sniffled. “Needs repairs. That should probably be minus a point. God my head hurts. I think I have a concussion. Minus two points?”

“Okay. Nothing broken. Well, except skin. Does that count as being broken? Huh. It’s really an interesting question if you think about it.” He rambled on.

“Right.” He said, bringing himself back on track a few seconds later. “Building is big. Hallway I’m in has at least thirty doors. Eighty-seven steps to the arena. But I think we might have been going in circles, so maybe not that big. Arena was round, room at least thirty feet high and the pit was fifty feet across. A ‘coupa hundred people. In the stands.” His voice was fading out. “Can’t smell the salt. Inland.. I think... feels like North…. Sor’y Ste’ve.” He finished in a mumble, blackness over taking him once more. “Hafta sleep fer a bit.” It was okay though, because the blackness felt soft and comfortable.

~*~*~

When he woke again it was to the clang of the door being opened once again. The same armed guard from the arena appeared, half of them entering and surrounding him, while the other half lined up outside the door with their guns pointed directly at him.

A balding, middle aged man entered the room then, a large case held in his hands. Tony held his position, not really seeing any point in putting himself through trying to move given the circumstances. The man came to kneel down beside his back, and Tony stiffened instinctively.

When the needle jabbed into the flesh of his arm, he though the man might have been giving him a sedative or possibly something for the pain. It turned out to be neither of those things, and he though it might have been some kind of antibiotic, as it left same disgusting metallic taste in his mouth that he would get in the hospital on the IV.

The cold press of scissors appeared on his lower back, and his shirt was cut clean away. In the position he was laying in, he was able to curl his left arm around his chest and keep the wire out of sight, as the man didn’t bother to remove the shirt completely, but rather just pushed the bloody, filthy material forward to bunch up on his arms.

He heard the sound of something being unscrewed and then his back was being doused in some type of liquid. He wasn’t sure what it was, but the smell of it burned his eyes, and the liquid itself set his back on fire until the pain of it was competing with the pain that still seared across his arms.

He grit his teeth against it, unwilling to make a noise. And they stayed that way through what felt like a steel brush scrubbing out the claw marks, and then another dousing of the liquid. He felt light headed and nauseous, hurting from so many different points his body blurred into one gooey mass of pain.

He still felt the pin prick of a needle being threaded through his flesh, and the skin tugged roughly back together. It seemed to drag on forever and just when he thought he couldn’t stand anymore, it stopped. He took a deep breath in through his nose, jaw aching and sore. It only stopped for a few seconds- long enough for the man to tie off the thread and prepare the needle for the next long gash. Then it started over again, and again, until all five of them were sewn shut. He felt some small flare of thankfulness that the fifth gash, the one closest to his spine, was only about 2/3’s the length of the others, but even that was a cold comfort.

He thought it was over at that point. Until the remanence of his shirt were shoved down even further and the liquid splashed against the first knife wound. Though there, the pain from the poison still outweighed the pain of the liquid. The small, lucid, part of his mind wondered if perhaps the disinfectant would help take away some of the inexorable _burning_. It didn’t.

By the time he was finally left alone, his head was lolling on the ground, and he was drenched once again in sweat. He’d managed to hold his shredded shirt against his chest despite everything, wire safely hidden beneath the bundle. With the little strength he had left, he curled his hand around the wire from above the cloth and used it to pull it free and wrap it up. Securely hidden once again from sight, he pulled the bundle closer to his chest and then maneuvered it slowly up to rest under his head.

His eyes rolled around in the back of his head, and the ceiling blurred and crisscrossed above him. He felt the vague sense of being grateful they’d bothered to starve off infection, even if it was only to keep him going until he could meet his slaughter in less than three days.

He wondered if they actually let the winner go, as they claimed to. He thought the more likely scenario was that they killed the champion while claiming to have released them. It took a lot to survive something like this, to win in something like this. To prove that you wanted to survive more than you wanted the other person to live, that you were willing to kill to make that happen.

He couldn’t imagine every single one who’d managed to make it through all of that, would go quietly back to their normal lives and that the ring would go undiscovered for as long as it had. Before he could contemplate it farther, his eyes rolled back for the final time and he fell back into the comforting arms of unconsciousness.

~*~*~*~

At the same time, Steve was standing in front of the large screen, watching photograph after photograph pop up as the program tried to find a match to their mystery police officer, who it turned out, wasn’t actually an officer at all. The two who were supposed to have been assigned were missing, assumed taken by the same ring (which was preferable to thinking they’d been killed and their bodies dumped somewhere).

It was coming up on three in the morning. He’d given up and sent the others home somewhere after midnight, when they were at dead ends yet again. His own team hadn’t been home to sleep in three days, and they’d all be more fresh and ready to move out in the morning. Steve though, Steve couldn’t bring himself to leave. He kept his earwig in and listened to every breath, every sigh and every unconscious groan of pain, knowing they meant the other man was still alive.

When he heard the clamber begin, he could tell they were providing rudimentary medical care, and he remanded still and stiff for the duration, knowing that if they were going to find the wire, it would be then. By some miracle they didn’t, and when it was over, Tony’s uneven breathing returned and he relaxed slightly once again.

And that’s where he remained, until Danny arrived back at seven, the other’s soon after. They went back to the beginning and began combing over every piece of evidence they had, trying to find some break, something they might have missed.

The Five-O security guard accompanied two people up at 8:00. Steve had already left instructions to let them up so they arrived at just 8:02. Malachi was familiar. The woman accompanying him was petite and almost fragile looking, with light brown hair and a pout that looked natural on her attractive face.

They were perfectly composed upon arriving in the room full of freshly caffeinated and desperately working agents. “Commander McGarrett.” The man said, nodding his head in greeting. “Agents. This is my partner, Liat.”

“Thank you for coming.” Steve forced himself to say, burying the lingering anger from being brushed off the night before. He knew they were capable of helping, and he needed the knowledge they held.

The man smiled, though it didn’t look friendly. “The only reason we are here is because I gave my word that I would listen. The one person that made me willing to work with you is no longer here. So tell me, Commander, why we should not simply leave right now?”

Danny’s expression turned affronted, though it had been hovering on a fine line beside it already, and he looked ready to speak up but Steve silenced him with a look. “Because Tony believes you’re a good man.” He said replied, stepping towards him. “And I trust his judgement. He said you’d put the success of the mission above everything else, and that you would see that working with us would have the best chance of that happening. Was he wrong?” Steve finished in a demanding voice, arms crossed over his chest. He was taller than the Israeli, and more muscular, but it didn’t seem to intimidate him as his lips curled. 

“I can see why Tony calls you ‘friend.’” The man stated. “You are very loyal to him. I too, call Tony friend, and that is not something I say about very many people. This is what I am willing to offer. We have a plan in place to infiltrate the facility on Friday night. We had initially planned on simply extracting our agent and leaving. In light of your own mission, we are willing to alter our plans to include your operatives as well, and are open to negotiating the specific details of the plan. We are not willing to move the time line in any way, as it has long been selected as the optimal timing for the best chance of success.”

“You said there are going to be a thousand people there on Friday. Wouldn’t it be better to go in without all the people?”

“No.” Malachi stated firmly. “We’ve identified that the compound has twenty guards armed with AK-47s on the premises at all times. When there is a fight, they are all stationed around the arena, or escorting fighters directly to and from the arena. When there is not a fight, they have stationary guards in the halls, in addition to a continuous patrol. In addition, the noise of the crowd will muffle any noises we inadvertently make. It is the best time.”

“I understand that. But Tony was injured pretty badly last night. I don’t know if he can survive that long.” Steve insisted.

“If we change the timeline, our chance of success drops approximately 67%. That is bigger than the life of one person. Tony is stubborn. You said he was injured. That means he survived whatever it is they put him through once. He will survive until Friday. You should have more faith in your friend.”

Steve scowled at him, mentally toying with the idea of throwing him down into the integration room and keeping him there until he told him where Tony was being held. He had a feeling that would take more than three days, however, and so had to be thrown out.

“Do we have a deal?” Malachi pressed at Steves silence.

“It doesn’t sound like we have a choice.” Steve rumbled.

“Oh, no, you most definitely have a choice. You can choose to proceed on your own, and we may proceed on our own. You are in no way being forced to work with us.” He rebuked firmly. “As a show of friendship, I would even be willing to extract Tony in addition to my own agent.”

“Still leaving fourteen American’s vulnerable.”

“As I previously told Tony. American soldiers are not my objective and so they not my problem, nor my concern. This is what I am willing to offer you. Take it or leave it.” He stated firmly.

The two men stared each other down for several long seconds.

“We’ll work with you, but under one condition.” Steve finally said.

“Oh? And what might that be?” The sarcasm was audible in his voice.

“We don’t want to just extract our agents. We want to take down the whole ring.”

“You must be joking!” Malachi laughed, followed by the woman beside him. “This organization has been in operation for decades. They have ties to everything from mobs to militia to entire nations. Their economy is equal to that of Australia, easily.”

“Australia?” Kono said, speaking up for the first time. “That’s an interesting country to choose.”

“Not really.” Steve replied. “Australia is one of the leading exporters of coal and diamonds, and their economy is ranked 13th in the world.” He turned back to look at Malachi, who was nodding at him appreciatidvely. “But the fight we busted up a while ago was tiny compared to this. It only had two fighters, and we were able to seize $200,000 in cash. If we could take them down this time? At an event with a thousand person turn out and at least eighteen captive fighters, that we know of? It’d take them years to rebuild, if they ever could.”

Malachi and Liat traded looks, both thinking it through. “We also have SWAT and HPD at our disposal.” Steve added to sweeten the deal.

“We’re going to have to change the plan completely.” Malachi replied.

“Then we should get started.” Steve said.

Malachi looked at him for a minute long. “Ok.” He finally agreed. “Let’s get started.”

~*~*~*~

The next couple of days passed both agonizingly slowly and at times too fast. They were attempting to organize a massive operation in just two days and it was tough going. Aside from one time when it sounded like they might have thrown in a bottle of water, Tony had been left undisturbed and had spent the majority of the time sleeping. He’d woken for brief periods of time, but wasn’t really conscious enough to make sense of, still lost in a haze of pain and confusion.

When Friday evening came around, Tony was woken from his slumber by the sound of the door opening followed immediately by the spray of a powerful, icy hose. He startled fully awake, jumping clumsily to his feet and moving back until he was pressed against the wall, arms raising to block it from hitting his face. He turned to put his back to the hose first, but the pain of it thundering against the tender, if healing, wounds covering its surface was too much to bear.

He spun back around with a wounded moan, dropping down to squat, so that the only surface for it to hit became his leg up to the knees, his arms, and the top of his head. Still they continued to spray him, until he began shivering despite the relative humidity and warmth of the room.

When it did finally stop, the now familiar troop of armed, masked men entered the room and so he kept his position, peering up at them wearily. The doctor from before entered the room, followed by another man carrying a full tray of food and large bottle of water. It was set on the floor and the second man left as quickly as he’d come.

The doctor stepped closer, holding a syringe loosely in his hand. “Arm.” He demanded calmly. Tony didn’t move, watching him carefully. “Give me your arm.” He repeated after a moment. When Tony still didn’t move he continued. “You will be getting this injection, whether you are willing or not. It is up to you how much choose to make it hurt.”

“At least tell me what it is first.” Tony demanded, voice weaker than he would have liked. He cleared his throat, lungs feeling tight and sore.

“It is a mixture of amphetamine sulphate and hydromorphone.” The doctor announced carelessly. “All of our fighters receive it before a big night. It is not personal or optional.”

Tony was a little surprised at how easily the doctor had revealed that information, and really that he was responding to him at all. He could have simply had the guards forcibly straighten his arm. He decided to press and see just how talkative the man was willing to be.

“So, how many fighters are in this thing?” He asked, voice sounding conversational, if subdued, as he willingly held out his arm. Speed and pain medicine wasn’t the worst thing they could give him. Hadn’t even ranked on the five worst things he had been considering, honestly.

“Including you, thirty-seven.”

Tony froze as the needle entered his vein and he felt the cool wash of liquid mix with his blood. That was more then they’d been expecting. They’d considered a larger number as a matter of course, but truly hadn’t expected there to be any more than twenty or so prisoners.

He could feel his heart rate start to increase almost immediately, and wondered if they adjusted the dose to size, or just gave everyone the same amount and let things happen as they would. “So how does this all play out then?” He asked, feeling like he’d drank a gallon of espresso. His could _feel_ his blood swishing through his veins, and his lingering pain faded to the background under the sensation. The burning of his arms could still be felt peripherally, but he didn’t pay it any attention. He felt strong, the strongest he ever had, and he pushed himself to his feet, no longer wanting to be in the constraints of his position.

The gunmen immediately moved in tighter and Tony raised his hands and leaned back against the wall with an almost teasing smirk. He knew if he attempted anything, he’d be holeyer than swiss cheese before he could take so much as a step. No, he’d cooperate. For now.

The doctor moved back to the door but paused before he exited the room. “The tournament is starting now. Your first fight will be in approximately twenty minutes. Eat, if you desire. Everyone deserves a last meal. Make no mistake, Agent DiNozzo, you will die here tonight. You should make peace with that.” He advised before he smiled. “Or don’t. The one’s who refuse to believe it always put up the best fight.” He left the room without another word, guards following him immediately.  

Once he was alone again he swooped down to pick up his shredded shirt and the radio hidden within. Not only was it sopping wet, it had also been stepped on at least once. He tossed it back down in disgust, pacing across the small room to look at the tray of food they’d brought. It was a piece of steak, a baked potato, green beans, and a roll on the side. He shook his head at it, but reached for the bottle of water.

He tried to move carefully, knowing he might still hurt himself, even if he couldn’t feel the pain of it. It has hard to remain cautious when he felt as good as he did though, and he felt a trickle of blood run from the stitches in his arm. The powerful hose had blasted away all of the dried blood, and he looked almost normal when he glanced down at himself. He had some bruises across his abdomen, but they were largely hidden under his tan and chest hair.

Other than that, he was wearing black pants that hid any stains, and his equally black shoes. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling agitated and restless. He drank the water as he paced, the twenty minutes seeming to both speed up and slow down. When they came back to get him, he was ready to go with them just to be out of the claustrophobic space.

He was much more aware on the journey this time, and he realized the reason it had seemed so disorienting the first time he’d made the journey was because the whole compound was built in a circular shape.  

When they arrived at the familiar wooden door, Tony took a deep breath, trying to steady himself for whatever was going to come through the other side. The roar of the crowd was even louder than before, and he wondered vaguely how it wasn’t heard by the rest of the island. The doors didn’t open immediately, and Tony glanced over his shoulder to look at the line of armed men. “Is it gonna be a wait then?” He questioned blithely. He could feel the blood start to run down from the bottom of the stitched gashes on his back with his movement and had to stop himself from reaching back to scratch at it.

The doors opened a couple of seconds later and Tony walked forward himself with a ‘Ta, gentlemen’ tossed back with a careless, sloppy salute over his shoulder. His eyes immediately began scanning the arena and he noticed several things that he didn’t before. The blinding lights that he remembered were the result of a crisscrossing of scaffolding holding up countless spot lights shinning down on both the crowd and the arena.

When he thought the seats had been filled to the brink, he’d be so, so wrong. He’d seen about half a dozen rows of seats before, and had estimated about one-fifty to two hundred viewers. Now the seats seemed to expand five times as much, and there must have been close to a thousand spectators clamoring above them.

Suddenly, the round hallways made sense. If the arena was as expansive as he now realized it was, the cells must have been built directly underneath the stands. His attention was drawn back to his newest opponent when he noticed the man slowly approaching him.

The man before him was wearing a tight black t-shirt, gleaming dog tags visible resting above, and Tony thought the man might have been focused on them during his own captivity thus far. The man was stocky in build and had short black hair, spiked up wetly. He was wearing a pair of surf shorts with the black shirt, and stood barefoot in the sand.

He looked familiar, and, as he prowled closer, Tony realized it was Nathan Kawika, the first soldier to go missing from Scofield. “Hey, Nate.” Tony tried, keeping his stance casual and refusing to take a fighting one. “You go by Nate, right?”

The man, Nate, looked a little spooked, and his eyes darted to the announcer that Tony had been ignoring thus far. When his eyes turned back to Tony, the hesitation had disappeared and he once again looked focused and determined. His stalling gait regained its purpose, and he once again began to approach.

Tony tried to remember what he knew of the man, but was having a hard time recalling the specifics. He decided to wing it instead, and went with his gut. “Nate, I’m Special Agent in Charge, Anthony DiNozzo, from NCIS. I don't want to fight with you.” He stated firmly, keeping his hands by his sides.

The man sent him a scathing, vicious look. “You don’t have a choice.” He said, before he attacked. Tony went on the defensive, refusing to return the blows. Nate backed off, once again circling around him. “It’s better to get it over with quickly.” Nate offered from his position, not sounding quite as angry as before. “They’re not going to let us stop until someone is dead.” His face was blank, but Tony could see the haunted look pass briefly over it.

“I’m not going to kill you, Nate.”

“Then I have to kill you.” The man said, jumping forward again. Tony tried to draw it out for as long as he could. He knew, or at least he hoped, that the bust would play out that night. He trusted his team, and he trusted Steve’s. He wasn’t sure if they’d have the support of the Mossad, considering how things had gone down, but even without them Tony had faith the others would get him out.

So he tried to buy them as much time as possible, toying with the soldier, his mind sharp and focused, with an almost playfully dangerous edge to his movement. He could see Nate getting frustrated and angry, and it was making him lose his own careful control of his movements.

Apparently the commentator was getting tired of his antics too, because two combat knives were dropped in the sand on opposite sides of the arena.

Tony cursed, twisting and darting towards the one closest to him, knowing he’d be at a huge disadvantage if he didn’t reach it before the soldier reached the other one. Nate charged him as soon as it was in his hand, and Tony had to twist and parry the blow with his own blade.

Knives had never been his strongest suit. He appreciated them, and he always had one with him, but using them in a fight was never a skill he’d honed too much. When the man breeched his defenses the first time and slashed across his ribs, he didn’t feel the pain of it or even realize it had happened until the blood began to run.

When he did notice it, he grit his teeth and stepped up his game. He’d been wanting to draw it not, not get himself more injured, and that was the only blow he was planning to allow the other man to land. Distantly, he could still hear the roar of the crowd and the mechanic sounding voice of the commentator broadcasting above them, but it’d all blended into the same woosh of noise he could still hear thrumming beneath his skin, and thus had been blocked out of his conscious thought.

He shifted his grip on the knife, turning it so the butt of the handle was gripped by his thumb, while the blade itself continued out as an extension of his arm. He readied himself, feet set wide and center of gravity low. When the man tried to slash his throat, Tony ducked down under the blade, raising his own even as his head went down, and stabbed the cruel looking knife deep into the soldiers’ shoulder.

Despite his own drug cocktail, the man let out a hoarse shout when the blade was subsequently ripped back out a moment later. His own knife fell from his suddenly limp hand, and Tony swooped down, shouldering heavily into his abdomen. Nate lost his breath, ending up flat on his back in the sand, stunned.

Tony rested the blade of his knife against the other man’s neck for several seconds to show that he’d clearly won, and then backed away from the downed man. He grabbed the other knife too and then moved back to stand in front of the wooden door. When it didn’t open immediately, he began trying to focus on all the ambient noises to try and make sense of them.

He had a hard time over the rushing in his hears, but finally caught on that they would not declare the fight over until one or the other was no longer breathing. Tony shook his head when he caught on and tossed both knifes down so that they stuck in the sand. He crossed his arms and stared up silently at the spot he knew the commentator stood, even if he couldn’t make out what he looked like.

It clearly amused the man, because his laughter came over the loud speaker. “ **Not in a hurry to leave the arena, Agent?** ” The man mocked him. Nate was pushing himself back to his feet, having regained the ability to breath, and looked unsure at what he was supposed to do. His left arm clasped his still limp right arm, though he didn’t look like he was in pain from it.  

 

_~*~ Back with Five-O ~*~_

Steve crouched tensely on the catwalk above the arena, body hidden by the glare of the lights beside him, shinning down on both arena and audience alike. He could also see several cameras mounted amongst the lights and said as much into his earwig. “How are we doing, guys?” He asked, watching what was going on far below him. Danny had moved around the walkway so that he crouched opposite of him.

The compound was built into the side of a mountain, and was completely enclosed except for the huge entrance doors and the ventilation shafts that lead out to the open. Even the parking area was built underground, a group of valets parking the high-end cars the patrons at a place like this drove. You had to have a chipped invitation to be able to enter the compound doors, which was how Malachi and Liat had entered. They were seated with the crowd.

Five-O and the NCIS agents had simultaneously entered four different vents and lowered themselves into the infrastructure of the compound. The vent Steve and Danny had entered dropped directly above the arena. The others had come in at point around the exterior and so dropped into the hallway of circling cells beyond the arena.

SWAT was moving in to surround the area and would catch anyone who tried to flee. They were almost in place, and then would begin extracting the prisoners. Thanks to Malachi’s info, they knew the prisoners sorted in order of who would fight. There were a line of them on either side of the wooden doors. The first cell on either side were medicated before the show started. Before the guards retrieved them for their own fight, they would accompany the doctor into the adjoining cell to medicate the next fighter. Once done, they would move the door beside it and retrieve the prisoner for the arena.

There were a set of guards and a doctor for each side. If their sides’ prisoner won, they’d take them back and toss them in their cell before medicating the next fighter. It was an effective system, but it was also easy to track.

The cameras could be a problem, and so he was waiting for confirmation that they were outside the surveillance room. “We’re in place, boss.” Kono said a moment later. She was positioned with Chin, Palowunu and Graham. Johnson remained at the base of operations in the forest above them, monitoring the communications and watch the heat signatures on the screen in front of her. 

“Three signatures inside the room. You are clear to move, guard signatures remain adjacent to arena.” Johnson spoke up next.

“Move out.” Steve ordered from his position. There was silence on his end as they forcefully entered the room and took out the three men inside.

“Clear.” Kono reported briskly a few seconds later.

“Alright, Kono, stay and monitor the compound. Rest of you move towards the exit. Johnson?” Steve said.

“Two heat signatures at the exit. Rest are unmoved. You should have a clear path.” She announced.

“Kono?” Steve asked next.

“Yeah boss, we’ve got twelve cameras set up here. Two on the arena, six on the audience, and the other four on the gates and surrounding area. None in the hallways.”

“Aright. Proceed cautiously.”

The others headed in formation to the main gates. The valets had all disappeared to somewhere and, true to word, the two guards were the only ones remaining. They were dispatched quickly, and the teams soon had control of both the gates and the control room.

“Alright, have SWAT move in and start extracting the prisoners. Johnson, watch those signatures to break away from the arena. Tony’s refusing to kill his opponent, and I’m not sure how this is gonna go.  Let’s move people, go.” He commanded, reaching into his own pants to start laying out the set of flash bangs he was going to throw down into the audience once the rest of the prisoners were removed.

~*~*~*~

Even as Tony stood peering up into the glare of light off glass, crossing his own arms across his bare chest and refusing to pick up the knives. The audience began booing at him almost immediately, but Tony refused to budge.

Nate eventually charged at him again, deciding it was better to get it over with than linger across the ring. With only one working arm and no knife, he knew he was likely running to his slaughter. Rather than taking the easy opportunity (and the kill shot), Tony lashed out once again in defense, ducking under his wild swing and then cold-cocking him when he shot back up.

Nate swayed back once again, staggering and falling to the ground, eyes rolling up in his head. The crowd began chanting down at him, “ **FINISH HIM. FINISH HIM. FINISH HIM**.” Tony shook his head, backing up until he was pressed to one wall. The crowd booed down, jeering at him and mocking him. One man yelled the word “PALACH!” and then almost simultaneously began chanting it. “ **PALACH! PALACH! PALACH!** ”  

The announcer began laughing and said something in Russian. The door across from him opened again, and the huge blond Russian that had escorted him that first night entered the arena. Tony felt coldness sweep over him, and ducked down to swoop up the two knifes still stuck a few feet before him.

The man who called himself Nicholas Taylor did not hesitate once he entered. He strode immediately over to the man still passed out on his back and took a fistful of his hair. He lifted his whole upper body off the ground, the man himself rousing with the motion and struggling instinctively. Taylor used the knife already clenched in his own hand to slice his throat clean open and then dropped him down to gurgle helplessly in the sand.

The crowd cheered, enthusiasm restored, and Tony felt sick. Taylor reached behind himself and drew out another identical knife, so that they both held two. The man leapt forward and attacked, Tony trying desperately to keep up with his superior size, strength and skill. He felt sweat breakout across his body, felt his muscles scream and strain as he forced them to keep up, to move faster. He was hanging on with everything he had, but he felt far from confident in his odds.

 

~*~ Steve’s POV ~*~

When the doors had opened and the new challenger had entered the room with Tony, Steve felt himself freeze all over again. The blond _felt_ dangerous, and practically glistened with bloodlust. “Where are we at?” He demanded, breath baited.

“We’re at the last four cells, Sir.” Johnson announced from above.

“Let me know as soon as the last prisoners are clear.” He ordered curtly.

“Yes, sir.” Steve looked across at his partner, seeing Danny’s own impatience reflecting back at him. Logically he knew it was better to get the potentially volatile prisoners clear before engaging in conflict, but it didn’t make the wait any easier, especially when he was forced to hold and watch Tony struggle against a fresh, uninjured and highly skilled opponent.

What felt like ages later, Johnson’s voice clicked into his ear again. “Prisoners are clear. SWAT is in position. We are clear to proceed.” She announced calmly.

“We are in position.” Malachi announced from where the pair had discreetly migrated to the main stairwell to keep the audience from trying to flee.

“In position.” Chin announced next.

“In position.” Palowunu stated last.

“We are in position.” Steve announced. "Move in in three- two- one- GO.” Both he and Danny activated their flash bangs and tossed them into the stands below. Malachi and Liat had braced for it and sprung forward immediately after, weapons drawn and ready.

Meanwhile, outside the first door, Chin’s team announced themselves to the group of eight of the masked guards. Across the arena, Palowunu’s team did the same. Above, Steve and Danny had dropped down from the rafters to secure the announcer and his own four personal guards at his position in the stands.

SWAT began moving in once hailed, and it seemed like everything was going smoothly. Tony staggered back and away from the opponent that was still pressing him. He felt the blood from another long gash open up, curving around his hipbone opposite the still bleeding gash across his ribs.

Danny nodded to Steve that he was good, and Steve immediately launched himself off a nearby bleacher to spring over the safety glass and fell the twenty feet to the sandy ground below. He landed in a roll and came up, run pointed directly at the Russian once again preparing to charge the severely injured man now safely behind Steve.

Steve reached down carefully and drew his backup, holding it behind himself for Tony to take. Tony pushed himself off the wall, dropping the knives he still held in favor of grabbing it, immediately releasing the safety and cocking it. He immediately felt better having the gun in his hands but was still have a hard time focusing over the thrum in his veins.

His heart beat louder and louder, he could see the chaos of SWAT marching into the room and everything felt too loud and muffled all at once. His head swam, and the colors began swirling around each other to the rhythmic beating of his heart.

He clutched the gun tighter in his hand, but couldn’t feel the pressure of it. The swooshing of his blood was getting louder and louder, until it was all he could hear. He staggered backwards slightly, losing what was left of his breath as his back collided with the wall once more. The swirling colors began to mix with flashes of dark red and black, and then disappeared altogether as he lost the fight with consciousness.

_~*~ TBC ~*~_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gave me a bit more trouble, and I really didn’t want to force it. I hope it meets all of your expectations. It was starting to get way too long, so I decided to cut it off here and have once more chapter to tie up all the loose ends. Let me know what you think, and I’ll hopefully have the (real) last chapter out in the next few days. Thank you to everyone who has given me feedback thus far- I really appreciate all the support!


	7. E Hele Mai Ana I Ka Hale (Coming Home)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is it folks. I hope it met all of your expectations! Thank you so much for sticking with this series, and for all of the comments. Special thanks to those of you that commented on every story and every chapter. I recognized you and looked forward to hearing your thoughts on each new installment. 
> 
> As you can probably tell by the length it took me to get this last chapter out, I’m definitely losing steam on this. I may come back and post more in the future, but for now you can consider this series completed. Thank you all for reading!!

Tony was only out for a few seconds before his brain automatically rebooted and tried to wake him. He was still laying in the sand, back pressed against the wall in a way that should have been painful, but wasn’t.

Steve was crouched over him, absolute chaos still churning around them. Tony smiled regardless, feeling carefree and bold with the drugs still coursing through him. “Hey.” He stated with a dopy grin.

“Hey, yourself.” Steve replied with a concerned frown. “Don’t try to move yet.” He commanded when Tony started to push himself back up.

Tony ignored him, hand reaching unsteadily for the wall as the ground moved under his feet. The flow of blood surged briefly as he stretched the skin of his back and he grimaced at the sticky sensation. He reached back to rub at it without though, but Steve caught his hand before he could.

“Hey.” Steve said, voice commanding Tony to look at him. Their eyes met and Tony smiled again.

“Hey. “Tony repeated.

Steve’s frown deepened and he reached up to press against the button on his com. “I need a medic in here, now.” He commanded shortly.

Tony immediately focused on the word medic and shook his head. He looked around, mind catching up with the situation once more. He felt spacy and dazed, his mind like sand draining through spread fingers. Still, he tried focus, straightening and moving his grip from the wall to Steve’s arm.

Steve couldn’t grab him back, not without holstering his gun, which he wasn’t yet prepared to do just yet. Still, he stepped closer, moving so that his arm was more directly under his hands and offered more support than it had initially. “I don’t need a medic.” Tony stated, sounding more like himself.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood.” Steve insisted.

Tony shook his head stubbornly and began trying to move towards the door. Steve moved with him reluctantly, wanting him to remain still but unwilling to constrain him. “I want to walk out of here.” He said simply.

And Steve couldn’t argue with that desire. Had felt it before, himself, every time he’d survived something he hadn’t thought he was going to. It was a primal urge, the need to carry oneself away from that which almost killed them, the need to prove that you survived and you were now free to walk away.

So they walked together, Tony feeling like his head was going to float away, and Steve concerned at how unsteady the other mans swaying steps were. Regardless, they made it to the main gates and exited into the flashing red and blue lights now surrounding the compound and lighting up the darkness of the night.

Steve steered him directly to a waiting ambulance and Tony went without further protest. He was seated on a gurney, EMTs surrounding him immediately, Steve pushed away and to the background.

“Oxygen is 73%.” One announced, and a mask was pressed against his face a couple of seconds later. He ignored their buzzing, eyes still locked on the other man. As he laid there, he saw Danny join the group, moving to stand by Steves side. Tony was glad to see him, glad he’d be able to distract Steve from his worrying. As he lay there, his vision began blurring once more, and the last thing he saw was the lights coloring Steve’s face as they flashed.

~*~*~*~

When he woke again, the sun was shining weakly through the window. He was laying in an uncomfortable bed, a cannula tucked into his nose and the horribly familiar feel of a hospital gown surrounding his otherwise naked form.  Steve was seated in the chair beside his bed, head tilted awkwardly to the side, still wearing his gear from the night before, and arms crossed tightly across his chest, even his his sleep.

He had bags under his eyes, Tony noticed with a feeling of guilt rising in him. He wanted to wake him, to ask questions, but couldn’t bring himself to disturb him. He pulled his eyes away instead, glancing around the rest of the room. It looked like every other hospital room he’d ever seen, sterile and generic.

He reached up to pull off the oxygen tube, not able to stand the blow of air up his nostrils for another minute. When he moved his arm, he felt the sharp tug of an IV set in the crook of his elbow. His eyes followed the multiple lines running up to the machine, four separate bags hanging from the pole.

His eyes felt heavy and gritty. He closed them to try and relive the ache and was asleep before he could open them again.

~*~*~*~

When he did finally open them again, the sun was shining brightly and the room was empty. He felt much more awake, and was much more aware of his body. He tensed immediately, body feeling achy and somehow uncomfortably tight. He could feel the lines of fire still burning on either arm, and he honestly couldn’t tell if it had abated at all.

He couldn’t feel pain from his back, but he could feel the pressure and pull of stitches in raw flesh taking up damn near half of its surface.  He grimaced slightly, pushing himself up regardless and then searching blindly for the button to raise the head of his bead. When the cannula once again pulled, he was cognizant enough to look at the oxygen monitor beside his bed before simply yanking it off. When he saw the red numbers glowing ’98,’ he reached up to pull it off anyway.

Once he was sitting up, he could see that several bouquets (including one made of candy) and colorful balloons had been added to the room and lined the wall and windowsill. He smiled slightly at seeing it, though was confused as to how many was there.

The IV was still running in his arm and his call light was on the tray table beside his bed. He reached out and pressed the button silently and then tried to shift to try and make himself comfortable. Only a minute or so passed before the nurse was bustling into the room with a light knock on the open door.

“Agent DiNozzo.” She said, smiling down at him. “My name is Jen and I’m your RN this afternoon. How are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling okay.” He said, tone raspy.

She shot him a sympathetic look as she moved over to look at the screen of the IV. “Your doctors have been notified that you’re awake. They should be here shortly and will be able to tell us whether or not you can have some water.”

“Doctors?” He croaked painfully.

“Yes, Dr. Macintyre is your admitting hospitalist, and your pulmonologist, Dr. Pauahi, asked to be notified once you were awake as well.”

Tony nodded slightly in acknowledgement. She moved on to listening to his lungs and check a few other things while he sat quietly and moved as directed. She was just preparing to leave the room again when a middle-aged man with sun tanned skin and greying hair walked into the room.

“Agent DiNozzo.” The man greeted with a friendly half-smile. “My name is Gerald Macintyre, and I’m your attending physician for your stay with us here.” He introduced himself, reaching out for a hand shake. Tony appreciated the gestures and took it readily.

“It’s nice to meet you.” He responded quietly, mustering a smile.

“Likewise.” He man stated, moving over to the pitcher of ice water sitting across the room by the sink. He poured a small paper cup and brought it back over.

Tony accepted it gladly and sipped it in appreciation. “You’ve been through quite the ordeal.” The man commented casually, reaching out to wrap a hand loosely around his wrist to feel for his pulse. “You were in pretty rough shape when they brought you in on Friday.”

He realized immediately that the man said ‘Friday,’ and not ‘yesterday.’ As most would have. “Today’s still Saturday, right?” He asked more easily thanks to the liquid, and was able to impart a bit humor into the question.

The man shook his head, eyes raising back up from his watch to meet Tony’s gaze. “Today is Sunday. We kept you under light sedation yesterday but began weaning you off this morning. It is three o’clock now.” Dr. Macintyre informed him calmly.

Tony’s brow raised in surprise. “Why?” He asked automatically, not feeling he was injured badly enough to warrant that.

The man’s eyes darted quickly down to his arms. “Are you hurting anywhere right now?” He questioned instead of answering the question.

Tony frowned at him, but answered regardless. “The cuts on my arms hurt a bit.” He said grudgingly. “But other than that, it’s just tightness and some achiness.”

“On a scale of zero to ten, ten being the worst, what would you rate your pain right now?”

Tony shrugged slightly, immediately feeling the increased tightness and mentally telling himself he should probably avoid doing that for a while. “I don’t know. A four, maybe?”

It was the doctors turn to frown at him. “The police were able to identify the substance used on the knife that left the wounds on your arms. All of the other victims who were exposed to the same chemical in the last two weeks are still experiencing significant to excruciating levels of pain.” The man informed him, causing Tony’s expression to turn slightly offended.

“I’m not a victim.”  He responded, voice cooler. “And it’s not that bad. Is _that_ why I was kept under sedation?”

“Yes, well, most of those exposed to his chemical _are_ still sedated.” The man said, not pressing any further. “Pain medicine is ineffective against it, and in most cases, it’s better to allow those exposed to try and sleep through it. Unfortunately, your medical history is a bit more complicated than most, and you are at a much higher risk of complications resulting from deep or extended sedation.”

The bedridden man nodded in understanding, though to him that didn’t sound unfortunate. He wouldn’t have wanted to be kept sedated, so he was a little glad his lungs made it impossible. The pain was just pain, it was always bearable.

“But your vitals have stabilized. We transfused three units of blood yesterday, and your lab values are back to normal. Your stitches all look good, and don’t show any sign of infection. Your chest x-ray is a little concerning, but Dr. Pauahi will discuss that more in depth with you when he arrives.” Tony nodded again. All in all, it didn’t sound too bad. “You’re definitely staying again tonight, and we’re going to get you in for a Chest CT tomorrow. We’ll go from there. Any questions at this point?” He offered, stepping back, with his hands clasped loosely in front of himself.

“Can I eat?” Tony asked with a crooked smile, though in truth he didn’t really have an appetite. Still, it got a light laugh from the doctor, so it served its purpose.

“Yes, you can eat up until midnight, tonight. I’ll have the nurse bring you a menu. Anything else?” Tony shook his head slowly, knowing he’d get a lot more information when the other doctor came in. “Alright, then you get some rest and I’ll be back to see you tomorrow after your test.”

“Thanks Doc.” Tony replied. As the man was leaving the room, Steve was entering. Tony’s attention was immediately drawn to the man. He’d clearly just showered and was wearing a fresh pair of tan cargo pants and plain black tee. He was also carrying Tony’s familiar duffle bag in his hand. “Hey.” Tony smiled, a little cautiously at the severe look still on his face.

“Hey.” The man responded, walking up to the bed and leaning over to press a kiss to his forehead. It lingered for several seconds before he pulled back. Once he did, he set the bag down in the chair beside the bed and crossed his arms, looking down at his bedridden partner sternly.

Tony pulled himself more upright, automatically steeling himself for whatever was coming next. Steves blank expression faded to concern for a second when Tony grimaced, but held himself still. “I’m glad you’re okay.” Steve finally said once Tony stopped wiggling himself up in bed.

“What happened?” Tony asked in response, fidgeting with the edge of the covers.

“The ring was dismantled. At least for now.” Steve reported calmly. “We made 987 arrests, and were able to free thirty-two prisoners, along with eight endangered animals that were being kept.”

Tony shook his head slightly. “They said there were thirty-seven prisoners.” He stated quietly.

“We also recovered five bodies.” Tony swallowed, but tilted his head in acknowledgement.

“How are they doing?” He asked next.

“It varies. Some are better than others. Some are still sedated.” Tony nodded again. “How are you doing?” Steve asked in return.

Tony shrugged, feeling the pull on his back again and silently berating himself for repeating the uncomfortable movement. “I’m okay.” He said simply, hoping he’d leave it at that.

Steve’s lips curled slightly, but it wasn’t a smile that Tony could see. He shook his head and asked, “Are we still doing this?” Tony’s eyes dropped, breaking their locked gaze. “You said we needed to have a conversation once the case was over. Case is over.” Steve continued.

Tony looked back up at him, and could see the slight waver in Steves stance, like he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to press just then or not. He didn’t back down though, waiting silently and stilly for Tony to respond. He observed the other man for a long moment before nodding. He still felt a little loopy and detached, but maybe that would make it easier to get through the upcoming conversation.

He drew his legs closer to himself, happy that they, at least, weren’t bothering him, and patted the space left behind. He didn’t think Steve was going to move at first, but after a pause he stepped forward and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. “You were right.” Tony started with, hoping it would lighten the other man up a little bit. He couldn’t tell if it worked or not. “I was avoiding you this week, but it wasn’t because of anything you did.” He paused to clear his throat and take another little sip of water.

Steve’s expression didn’t change. “I, uh, well, um, about three years after I started at NCIS, we had a letter delivered that was just addressed to ‘NCIS Special Agent.’” He paused, eyes darting up to meet Steves quickly before dropping back down. “I opened it, and it was, uh, filled with white powder…”

Steves expression curled into a small frown of concern, but he didn’t interrupt. “It turned out to be a strain of genetically modified pneumonic plague, with a suicide chain built in. I survived it, obviously,” His eyes darted up again. “but it damaged my lungs pretty bad by the end. I’m fine now, usually, um, but I can be more susceptible to certain things…” He tried to put his thoughts into order, wanting to explain properly, to make this strain between them go away. It was hard though, he just felt tired, exposed and uncomfortable, and he was having a hard time focusing.

It turned out Steve was going to continue for him. “Things like volcanic fumes.” He stated, voice cool. “That’s why you stopped to read that sign at the park.” His voice was rising the slightest bit, anger beginning to build. “You knew you shouldn’t be there, and you didn’t say anything.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Tony defended himself, though his tone remained slightly subdued. “I’ve felt great since I’ve been on the island. I’m in better shape than I have been since college. I didn’t think it would matter.” His honesty was audible in his voice, but Steve still didn’t soften.

“But you knew there was still risk enough that it made you hesitate.” He shook his head. “So, what happened?” He demanded.

 Tony’s eyes dropped again. “I started to get a cough. It’s how it always starts when I get sick. I was hoping it would go away on its own after a few days. When it didn’t, I went to the doctor. He said I have Chemical Pneumonia. -What?” He broke off and asked at the look of realization on Steves face.

Steve shook his head, crooked smile on his face, though he didn’t look happy. “I thought you’d been drinking more than usual. Just makes sense now.” Tony’s eyes dropped again. He didn’t think Steve had noticed, but alcohol was a natural cough suppressant. He’d been drinking more scotch when he’d been around Steve so that it would help dampen the need to cough.

“Look,” Tony spoke up, voice taking on a defensive note, though he remained subdued. “I just, I didn’t want you to know I was sick.”

“Why not?!” Steve demanded, pushing himself back to his feet and pacing around to stand at the foot of the bed, creating more space in between them. “What would be so wrong with me knowing you’re sick? Why would you even hide something like that?” He continued, voice incredulous and pressing.

“Because I didn’t want you to treat me any different!” Tony finally exclaimed, starting to get worked up for real. He was Italian, after all, and they weren’t exactly known for keeping an even temper.

“ _What_?”

“Look, all’s anyone had done since it happened has told me what I can’t or shouldn’t do. Okay?” His voice was angry and coated with bitterness. “I’m sick of hearing it. I don’t want it to be what you’re thinking about every time we go for a run or a hike. I know what I’m capable of. I don’t- I can’t.” He broke off, fuming and trying to bring himself under control. He took a deep breath and forced himself to continue. “I wouldn’t be able to _be_ with someone that treated me like I’m handicapped or incapable, just because my lungs are a little scared up. Okay?” He demanded again, willing the other man to understand where he was coming from. “I can’t have you be another one of those people in my life. So no, I didn’t tell you I was sick, and yes, I was avoiding you for a few days. But-” He cut off his rant, feeling a little foolish and off kilter.

He glared down at the bed, deciding then that no, it wasn’t a good idea to do this on drugs, because he definitely wasn’t focused enough to have a conversation that could essentially change his life if it went wrong. It deserved his full attention, and he wished they could just rewind and do this all later. Because he wasn’t looking up, he didn’t see Steves shoulders drop or his expression soften slightly as the man observed his despondent tone and posture.

He did hear the sound of his door opening again, and he glanced towards it to see a familiar face entering the room, already frowning at him. “Dr. Pauahi.” He greeted, attempting a welcoming tone, but sounding more tired than anything. “This is my partner, Steve McGarrett. Steve, this is my pulmonologist.”

“Commander,” He nodded at Steve, clearly knowing who he was already. Steve nodded silently in return. “If you could excuse us for a few minutes, I need to evaluate my patient.”

Steve looked back at Tony, not wanting to leave the room, but knowing it was ultimately the other mans decision. Tony met his eyes, looking unsure. “He can stay, if he wants to.” He offered quietly.

Steve nodded, moving to stand in the corner so he was out of the way, arms crossed and face blank. “Very well.” Dr. Pauahi stated, beginning by bringing his stethoscope to his ears. The whole thing took a good ten minutes before the physician stood back with his hands clasped in front of him loosely. “I was informed you were unable to start your antibiotic regiment prior to your abduction?” He questioned lightly.

Tony shook his head. “I filled it,” He replied, “but never had a chance to take it out of the bag.”

“I told you that you shouldn’t be working in your condition.” The doctor continued, sounding slightly scolding.

“And I told you that we were in the middle of a case.” Tony stated stubbornly. The doctor shook his head at him with a frown before continuing.

“At some point during your captivity, you were injected with a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. There are still traces of it in your blood. It was likely given to prevent infection setting into your wounds, but in your case the massive dose was enough to prevent your lungs from worsening. They actually sound a little better than they did when I last saw you.” He admitted grudgingly.

“I thought that was just the pain medicine.” Tony joked, trying to sound normal. He’d noticed it felt easier to breath, but hadn’t really had the time to give it much thought since waking.

“That probably doesn’t hurt.” The doctor agreed, smiling at him slightly for the first time since their introduction. “We’re still going to get a CT of your chest tomorrow, and start you on a ten-day regiment of broad spectrum antibiotics. If everything goes well, we’ll probably discharge you tomorrow night. I still want to see you for your follow up on Tuesday, and then after you finish the treatment. Sound fair?” He asked when he finished.

Tony nodded, somewhat grudgingly. “Alright. Get some rest, and I’ll be back to see you tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thanks, Doc.” Tony stated as the man took his leave. The two men were left alone once again, and Tony turned his attention back to the man once the door had closed again.

Steve wandered slowly back over to the bed, and reclaimed his seat on the edge, propping himself up with one foot on the chair still holding the duffle bag. “Okay, listen,” Steve spoke up, voice rumbly and quiet. “I know you, Tony. We might not have talked for a few years, but I _know_ you. It doesn’t matter to me if your lungs are messed up. I know how strong you are, how capable. I will never doubt you, or tell you that you can’t do something, because I don’t believe it myself. You can do anything you put your mind to. You’ve proven that a hundred times before.”

Tony face crumbled the tiniest bit before he got it back under control. “You mean that?” He asked.

“Yes, I do. But that doesn’t mean you should take stupid risks or that you can hide it from me. You gotta be honest with me, babe. This isn’t gonna work if we’re keeping secrets from each other. If I knew about this before the trip, and you told me you were good, I would have taken your word for it. And when you got sick-“ He broke off, leaning back slightly and shaking his head. “you should have told me instead of avoiding me.”

“You’re right.” Tony agreed, immediately. “I know I needed to tell you, I just, I wasn’t expecting it to be as bad as it was, not with how good I felt. I’m sorry. I promise, no more secrets.”

Steve studied him for a long moment and then leaned forward to wrap a hand lightly around the other mans neck. He pressed their lips together softly, and Tony returned the kiss with feeling. Steve scooted closer on the bed, and they stayed that way for several minutes, reveling in the closeness they’d been deprived of since the whole thing started.

~*~*~*~

When Danny, accompanied by Grace, arrived an hour later, Tony had gotten dressed in the pair of sweat pants and his well-worn Ohio State Buckeyes sweatshirt that Steve had thoughtfully brought him. It probably wasn’t cold enough for it, but it was soft and comfortable. He’d also put on the pair of dog tags that had been silently added to the bag and that went unmentioned. When they’d been together before, Tony had always worn Steves tags, or kept them on him in some way.

Because of the nature of their assignments, the SEAL teams were actually unable to wear anything identifying, and so even though they were issued Tags, they never wore them. Tony had liked wearing them when Steve was deployed (which was nearly always), because they made him feel more connected to the other man, as silly as it may have been. Steve also enjoyed seeing Tony in them, it appealing to his inner possessive caveman, and so both had taken pleasure in the habit.

When they’d broken up, Tony had shipped them back to the island, with a few other odds and ends of things he didn’t want to keep and couldn’t just toss out. Feeling them rest, once again, against the bare flesh under his shirt felt right in a way he couldn’t put into words. The expression that had flashed over Steve’s face when he’d pulled the chain silently over his head clearly showed his own satisfaction, and filled Tony’s stomach with warmth.

 They’d moved the head of the bed all the way up and sat side by side atop the covers, watching the game of the smallish TV mounted to the opposite wall. The IV was still in his arm, right sleeve pushed up above his elbow, but he’d otherwise been disconnected from all the tubes and hoses. He’d also ordered some food, but it sat abandoned and barely touched off to the side of the bed.

Grace was carrying a bright, floral, ‘Get Well Soon’ balloon, and Tony was pleased when she scurried right up to the bed to hand it to him. “I’m sorry you got hurt!” She professed as he took it.

He smiled down at her. “Thank you.” He replied softly.

She began chattering away happily as Danny wandered over to them, hands tucked into his pocket. He nodded at Tony, a smile on his lips, and clear respect in his expression. The four weren’t alone for long before the others began trickling in. His own team filed in to see him, baring a small planted fern-like, get well basket. They didn’t stay long, but Tony was touched they’d come by all the same. They hadn’t been working together for long, after all, but it was still more of a gesture than his coworkers had made for him in the past.

Kamekona and Flippa were the last to arrive, but came bearing bags of delicious smelling food. Tony immediately perked up at the scent, stomach rumbling. He and Steve were each handed a Styrofoam container, which they set on the dinner tray Danny helpfully cleared of the forgotten hospital fare and brought over to them.

The room was probably louder than it should have been, considering they were in a hospital, but with as many people were stuffed in the small room, it was kind of inevitable. Because it was so loud, and Tony and Steve’s attention were both on Danny as he regaled them with a story from his days in Jersey, they didn’t really notice the door opening and two more people joining them. At least not until the room started to quiet and it drew their attention.

Malachi and Liat made their way up to the side of the bed, looking as fresh and put together as they always did. Malachi was wearing a lavender shirt with the top two buttons open under his normal black suit, despite the heat, and Liat a thin long-sleeve shirt and black cargo pants. He smiled up at them, having been filled in on their assistance with the takedown. “Sorry to interrupt.” Malachi said as the came to a stop, voice droll.

 “Hey, not problem at all. Wasn’t sure if I’d see you before you left or not.” Tony said in greeting. “How’s your agent?”

“He is well.” Malachi answered easily. “We will be departing for Israel this afternoon. He is happy to be going home.”

“That’s great!” Tony exclaimed. He glanced around the room, noticing the still way everyone was holding themselves. He shook it off, Malachi’s personality could be a lot for most people to deal with, Tony wasn’t surprised no one else was joining in greeting the pair. “I’d uh, offer you some food, but-“ He shrugged with a crooked smile, knowing full well neither of them would eat shrimp.

Malachi’s lips curled into a small smile. “No need, we are not staying. We simply wanted to wish you farewell before we depart. I am disappointed we did not get to work together this time, though watching you fight was quite impressive.”

Some may have gotten upset at the bluntness of the statement, but Tony understood what he meant and knew Malachi wasn’t mocking his captivity. He ignored the jolt of nausea that spiked through his stomach as the image of Nathan’s throat being slashed flashed behind his eyes and smiled instead of grimacing. “I appreciate you working with the teams anyway. I owe you one.”

Malachi waved off the statement with a casual motion of his hand. “Twz no hardship.” That was high praise, coming from the man, and Tony smiled at hearing it. Steve nodded his own head beside him, agreeing with the statement. Despite the somewhat rocky start they’d gotten off to, Tony knew that the Mossad agents had earned Steves appreciation and respect over the course of the operation. He didn’t necessarily like the other them, but he knew Tony did and he respected that.  

“Well, thank you all the same.”

“You are very welcome, my friend. I am glad you are well.”

“Well, I got a pretty cool scar out of the deal.” Tony joked, rotating his shoulder slightly and feeling the tug of new stitches across a huge swatch of his back.

“That you did. Well, we will not keep you. You really should come to Israel. You would enjoy it very much.” Malachi reached a hand out, which Tony grasped automatically in return.

“I’ll try.” He promised.

Liat stepped closer once Malachi pulled away. She leaned down and pressed her lips against his cheek. “Yes, come to Israel. We will show you a _very_ good time.” Her accent was as thick as ever, and pitched to be seductive. Malachi watched the exchange carelessly, though Tony felt Steve bristle beside him at the clear invitation.

Tony smiled at her, though it lacked any flirtation in return. He’d grown use to the behavior from both of the Mossad women he’d been in extended contact with, and had come to expect it in some manner or other. He didn’t take it seriously, though he knew she probably would sleep with him if he truly tried. He knew she and Malachi were far from exclusive, and even occasionally took a third partner to one or the others bed. When one lived as dangerous of a life as they did, they took pleasure when and where they could find it, and never took a day for granted.

“Shalom.” He said simply, instead of reacting directly to the statement.

Malachi nodded to him and repeated the phrase, followed by Liat. The two took their leave, as silently as they had arrived, and it took several seconds for conversation to start up again. Once it did, and Tony had finished his food, he settled more deeply into the bed, coming to rest slightly pressed against Steve. He pulled his right leg, the one on the outside of the bed, up and rested his elbow against it comfortably. His hand came to rest naturally over the now warm metal hidden beneath the fabric.

He felt warm and comfortable, and he wasn’t sure if the slightly dazed feeling was from the medicine, or from his own contentment, but as he listened to Danny and Kono loudly debate one football team over another, Grace piping up with her own comments every few seconds, he felt happier than he had in a long time. These people, this group, who had been strangers to him just a few months before, had become more of a family to him than he’d had since the early days at NCIS. He was so, so glad he’d boarded that plane, that he’d come back to the one place that he’d always loved being. He’d _come home_ , and that made all of the residual anger and bitterness, all the discomfort, and even the lines of fire still scored across him arms, seem so much less significant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> his is it folks. I hope it met all of your expectations! Thank you so much for sticking with this series, and for all of the comments. Special thanks to those of you that commented on every story and every chapter. I recognized you and looked forward to hearing your thoughts on each new installment. 
> 
> As you can probably tell by the length it took me to get this last chapter out, I’m definitely losing steam on this. I may come back and post more in the future, but for now you can consider this series completed. Still, I'm pretty proud of it- over 74,000 words in just under two months!! Thank you all so much for reading!!


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